The Shadow III: Shades in Folding
by Hanyou Hitokiri
Summary: They are the Shadow of the Sun. Take away the Sun, and all that is left will be the enfolding darkness, an everlasting without purpose. There is a death deeper, more eternal than that of ceasing to exist. Oneshot
1. Part One

Woo-hoo! Number three! And way after I planned on actually posting. Oi…

Anyway, I hope that this one satisfies the complete lack of romance and action of the last one. Again, this one is after a time jump, though not as long as the jump between one and two. These really only cover important things that have to be explained but also, I hope, leaves some things in question still. That is why there are time jumps. I could say that we don't really care what happened in between them because nothing really happened, blah blah blah, but we'll just have to see. I don't plan on giving anymore explanations on things in between the Shadow series anyway, and the things that are important are always flashbacks. So I guess it all works. For the most part.

If that last part of the pervious paragraph didn't make much since, my apologies. Everything will be explained later on. I'll just keep you on your toes even in the author's note. Heh. That's interesting.

In any case, whether thinking 'What the crap is this nut talking about?' or, 'Just shut up already. You're giving me a headache.' I give you the Shadow three. Enjoy! -Laughs- I've always wanted to say that.

This story is rated accordingly due to graphic violence, possible language, and lime and above. In other words, it only gets worse, folks. Or better. Whichever.

**Disclaimer:** I do not, in any way, shape, or form, own Rurouni Kenshin. It, all of it, belongs to Watsuki-sama, as well as all those other people. The future, for me, in hopes of owning at least Kenshin looks very, very bleak. Practically nonexistent. -goes to get her Kenshin plushie for comfort-

**RKRKRKRKRKRKRKRK**

**The Shadow III**

**Shades in Folding**

**Part One**

It was a dream enfolding the smothering darkness around her. She could not breathe. This vision showed her forms, familiar and ghastly. They rampaged, slaughtering like animals with deep red eyes closely similar to the thick liquid dripping from their fanged mouths.

She tried to find where these beasts came from, but could not follow their movements. They were much too quick. She could trail the streak of red from their glowing eyes but they were never there at the end of the ghostly line.

She wanted to wake. Before, waking was so simple. She wished it so in her troubled mind, and she would then see the feathered cover that always spread over her as she slept. She would wake; now she cannot, no matter the effort.

Her scream frightened her, sudden as it echoed back to her ears. The one pair of eyes, the deepest red that throbbed like blood pumping from a flowing wound, shone before her once again. She struggled to escape the piercing gaze but they forever remained suspended before her, taunting and horrific as blood ran from them, down the invisible body of the phantom.

Sweat trickled from her brow, ran down her face to settle on the tip of her nose. It trembled with her before falling, disappearing into the nothing she sat upon.

A smile, fanged and dripping, spread under the eyes. Where the distance once had always stayed the same from her to the orbs, it was closing rapidly now. The shape of a man stood over her, all black save for his eyes and smile.

Surprised, she saw that it was not blood dripping from the thin glinting teeth. It was a clear liquid and it splattered on her exposed leg.

"Kaoru," the man spoke. A scream tore from her throat, involuntary as the man laughed. From her mouth slowly came a fluid. She spit it at the man's feet under his gleeful gaze, but it quickly returned to wash her tongue. Metallic. Sour. Blood. She screamed again, but gurgled as she choked.

The man said something again as his blacken hand reached for her, beckoned her to him. Kaoru searched for a way to flee this dream, but only found a sting on her lip. Her blood mixed with the blood already in her mouth that flowed around the unexpected length of teeth. Fangs.

As the man neared, his hand ready to brush her face, Kaoru lurched forward and viciously clamped her newly-found weapons into her own skin.

She woke screaming a muffled scream, half of fright and half of pain. Kaoru had bitten her arm lying asleep. There were no fangs bulging behind her lips. She hissed as her arm began to sting and blood pooled in the marks left by her teeth.

The dark canopy fluttered above her as a form shifted beside her, wrapping iron cold arms around her. His lips lightly touched her wound, licking the blood from arm until the small flow ceased. Eyes of amber looked to her face.

"Kaoru,"

"Kenshin, the same dream. I had it again."

Kenshin closed his eyes. When they opened, they were the soft color of amethyst but they still were guarded from her too see fully inside. "I do not know what to do about this," he said. "But dreams will pass."

"That is what you said a year ago, Kenshin, when these visions first came to me," she insisted.

"Dreams are dreams, Kaoru. They mean nothing."

"This does mean something! I know it does, Kenshin. Why can you not trust me? Something is wrong."

"We will not know unless something happens, little one. Sleep. You refuse to do so while I fly."

Kaoru grabbed for something to gather and keep the man's attention but found nothing except cold, solid skin of his chest. She settled for pointing her finger full in the Shadow's face.

"There is something going on, or about to happen, Kenshin." Tears formed in her eyes as she choked on her next words. She buried her face in his shoulder; leaning fully on him even as his was propped only on one elbow. He could hold her steady.

Kenshin held her, snaking an arm around her shoulders as they shook. His silence was broken only by her sobs.

"We will wait and see," he offered to her. "Kaoru, we will wait. No leaping at the first assumptions."

She looked away from him but nodded slowly, taking a breath. "I want to go home."

Kenshin frown. "Kaoru, we arrived only two days ago. I cannot take the rains away from here for another ten days."

"I want to check on Kenji," she said, worried.

"The boy is ten years of age," Kenshin assured her. "He can handle himself quite well. I have been teaching him."

"I know, but-"

"But nothing. He cannot be coddled all his life. Let him grow."

Kaoru took her turn to frown. "I do not coddle our son."

"You sing him lullabies before he sleeps. He does not even need sleep."

"I sing him one because he asks me too," Kaoru glared. "It is a favorite of his. It always puts him to sleep quickly."

"Human habits," he muttered.

"He will probably break the habits I forced him on," Kaoru admitted. "But, until he does, at least allow this one thing."

Kenshin gazed blankly into her shining sapphire eyes and a smirk pulled at a corner of his mouth. "I do not mind the song, little one. I rather like it myself." He nuzzled her hair, speaking into her ear softly. "Had I the ability to sleep, I would ask you to sing it for me."

"I still can," she whispered, accepting his feather-like kissed from her jaw to her nape by tilting her head.

"Not now," he half growled as he took her lips with his own, exploring her mouth as he brushed his hand over her, spreading the loose clothing concealing the warm flesh behind it. He called his wings into his back as Kaoru reached her arms to stroke through his silken hair the color of deep flame. She matched his ardent kiss with her own, and she grinned as a guttural groan rumbled in his chest.

Her need for air overpowered her need for the man and she broke to draw a deep, ragged breath. She purred pleasantly as he worshiped her with both hungry mouth and hands. Kaoru took her teeth to his shoulder, pressing lightly and scraped across his skin. She felt his fangs stretch from their sheaths and press into her nape, but Kenshin grew very still. She could have held a stone and the difference would not have shown.

"Kenshin?"

"Kaoru," he said softly. Hard undertones flecked his voice. "You will be the death of both of us."

"What?" She scooted from under him but stroked the bangs from his eyes.

"I have much control, but you seem to enjoy striping that away from me," Kenshin looked into her eyes, running his finger down her cheek.

"You have tasted my blood before," she stated.

"Yes," he whispered. "But something so sweet; it becomes a hard call to ignore, but I could not live if I ever harmed you in such a way. And it is not only my fangs I have to keep in check. You are such a fragile creature. So easily broken. Only this lifetime I have lived for so long keeps you alive with me."

Kaoru shook her head. "I did not realize…I'm sorry."

"There is nothing you can do. Do not apologize," he said, gazing out into the closed night sky, the ever-present clouds shading the stars and moon. "It is my battle. It becomes easier by the day as it become harder."

"I don't want to make anything harder for you," Kaoru avowed apologetically.

"Anyone younger in years would have crushed you," He was speaking more to himself now, seeming to peer past her.

She pulled him to her, cradling his head to her chest and brushed his hair from his face.

"Now you baby me," he teased.

"You both are my great, strong men," she admonished. "Even if this is just for my own sake, humor me?"

"Of course."

She smiled as she felt him breathe for her. Kenshin closed his eyes, mocking sleep just for her.

**RKRKRKRK**

Kenshin alighted in the middle of the forest, his jungle.

"Why must you always insist walking the rest of the way?" he asked.

Kaoru smiled over her shoulder. "You may not have to bother with it, but I need and thoroughly enjoy the walking."

He sighed, drawing back his wings.

Kaoru treaded through the thick brush. The soil bounced with her steps, spongy with water from the rains. This forest belonged to the Shadow of rain. It was his home lands; the rain lands. Unlike her home of dry plants that hoarded any water they can gather within their dull greens and browns, this place was vibrant. The soft leaves of the ground bushes that curled or grew so broad that they could provide adequate shade from the rain were bright and full. The trunks of the trees were always nearly black from the constant running water from above.

The birds with all brightly multi-colored feathers gleamed even under the gathering clouds. Feathers of blues, greens, and teal fluttered to her right, their songs to each other high and fast sung notes. At her left displayed birds of red, orange, and deep pink, the notes of their chorus long and low. They pitched together, a harmony of the feathered choir. Their sound was beautifully frightening as they sang for her, though she not able to discern why. Perhaps it was the birds that feared something, and Kaoru just heard this in their songs. Perhaps it was a fear within her finding any way to show itself, and seeing these winged animals fit for doing so. Perhaps it was both.

She forced herself to believe Kenshin. Dreams will pass in time. Nevertheless, just how long will they keep stealing her nights away before they recede?

Three years ago she learned that her dreams of Kenshin while she ran from him all meant that her body, credit to the mark on her neck, was struggling to find him. The lost feeling that had churned in her stomach was also from his absence. Her sheer will to stay him away kept her from finding him. Though wary, she had willingly left with him, taking their son with them. Her dreams passed then, once she was returned to him. But they had meant something. These now could not mean nothing.

Kaoru turned suddenly, feeling an absence behind her. Kenshin was looking off where the flock of birds sang, studying something with a deep frown.

"Kenshin?"

When he looked to her, there was no trace of anger on his face. "It is nothing. But I will have to work with _him_ on stealth," he said with a smile that almost touched his eyes as he peered over her head.

A tree emitted a frustrated sigh and released a small redhead from its branches. Long, black wings carried him from the treetops to the ground.

"I'll never learn it," Kenji said, folding his single set of wings to his back.

"You will," Kenshin placed his hand on the boy's head. Kenji's hair had grown to nearly the same length down his back as Kenshin's was. He tied it higher on his head rather than have it resting on his neck like his father.

Kenji smiled, his deeper blue-purple eyes shining when he saw Kaoru. "Mother!"

Kaoru enveloped him in a hug, kissing the top of his head. He stretched his wings around her as well as his arms.

"I hope you behaved yourself?" she asked, looking into his bright eyes.

He nodded. "I did. I always do," he smiled, his fangs gleaming. They were not nearly as long as Kenshin's could reach, but they still protruded from his lips when closed.

"Did anything happen while we were departed?" Kenshin asked. Kaoru glanced to his face with a warm smile. His lip twitched a grin in return.

Kenji frowned. "No, nothing father. Why?"

"I was wondering, son."

Kenji shook his head. "Today all the birds seemed to be upset. Does that mean something?"

"I saw. No. It does not." His voice was much too distant, and Kaoru frowned.

"Kenji," she said, getting the boy's attention. Though he had grown, he still had to look up to see his mother's face. "Go on home. Your father and I will be coming in a moment."

He glanced from her to Kenshin. "Ok."

Kaoru watched the Shadow as the gust of wind Kenji created settled.

"You know," she silently accused.

His back to her, he did not answer.

"Kenshin, you know there is something, don't you?"

His head titled upward as a small thunder purred across the sky. "There is always something,"

"That is not what I meant," she shook her head. "Kenshin something is happening. You may guard yourself from me, but there are some things even you cannot hide. I know. I can see that something is troubling you."

Kenshin stepped away from her touch.

"Can you not tell me?" she asked, pleaded with him. "I share with you everything that I see while I sleep, and you cannot explain the meaning behind these visions? Why are you keeping me in the dark?"

"You are not fully in the dark, not yet," he growled. "It will stay that way."

"Kenshin,"

"_No_!" He turned, his eyes blazing as amber strikes of lightning danced against the purple-blue. She stumbled backwards onto the ground, the vibrations of cracking thunder shaking the earth.

Kaoru picked herself from the soggy ground, standing even as her knees slightly trembled at the force of the Shadow. She glared.

"It truly is nothing, little one," he spoke softly.

She slowly stepped to stand before him and reached to brush hair from his face. Kaoru placed her head under his chin. His arms remained by his side.

Kenshin flicked his gaze to the trees overhead, and saw a flutter of wings carry a small form away.

**RKRKRKRK**

The halls of the sturdy, immaculate mansion standing in the middle of the storm-ridden forest were quiet, save the clashing thunder and straining clatter of rain. The trees blew in the wind, only dark waving shapes showing when bright fingers of light spread across the sky.

The thick wood of the large dwelling blocked every element from gaining access inside; the roof remained firm and prevented stray branches from skewering the home.

Kenshin stood in full Shadow appearance, wings spread to fill the entire doorway to outside at the end of the long hall. His eyes glimmered amber, and black claws clung to loose fingers. He watched nature take its course, the sky and the land at battle. Both had a single determination that did not waver, never would. The sky would always open and drown what was stuck to the land, and the land would forever take what the sky gave it, use it in every way possible, and eventually return part of what was taken to the skies. An endless circle; one he has watched and guided for many, many years.

In another flash of lightning, a shadow stood beside him, the owner, behind him.

"Kenji," Kenshin said without turning to the boy. "Why are you out of your bed?"

"I don't need sleep, father." The boy answered. "You always told me that."

The Shadow nodded, the feathers of his wings ruffled with soft whispers in the violent winds that curled inward from the outside.

"I have a question," Kenji stated blandly, sounding so close to being a younger version of his father.

Kenshin nodded again. "Then ask."

"Do you love her?"

Kenshin turned his head over his shoulder.

"Do you really love mother?"

"Why?" Kenshin faced him fully now. Kenji had his wings spread as far as they would as well, but it still did not yet even reach a third the length of Kenshin's.

"You are always so distant, father. I see the way she looks at you, but you never return anything," Kenji accused.

"I must explain myself to a boy?"

"I may be just a boy," Kenji said firmly. "But I want to know why you act so cold to my mother."

Kenshin watched his son: the emotions running in his eyes and the challenging stance the boy adapted the moment the question first spilled from his lips. He could have smirked. He could have punished the boy. But he merely stood and watched.

Kenji did not move except only in attempt to spread his wings a bit further and stand somewhat taller.

"You will grow, son," Kenshin answered after a time of unbroken silence. "And you will learn."

"Learn what, father? To feel nothing, even for a woman who accepts me for what I am? Not to feel anything at all?" Kenji looked his father square in the eye. "I love you. You are my father. But that does not mean I want to be just like you."

Kenji walked away. Kenshin narrowed his eyes, feeling strongly that the boy needed a consequence for his so freely-spoken words, but he let him go. There was another presence that needed to be attended to.

"Letting your own spawn challenge you in such a blatant manner?" Einishi asked, a chuckle in his voice as he peeled from the shadows outside. His unruly white hair hung limp and plastered to his face from the rain. "Is this what has become of the great Shadow?"

"Enishi," Kenshin snarled. "You on my ward means death. Has your shame finally given you sense?"

"Not many places for me to go in that case, are there? There are many lands that belong to one of you," Einishi said.

"And each holds the same." Kenshin growled, a soft roll of thunder grumbling underneath his words.

Deep red eyes gleamed like spilled and coagulated blood as he chuckled. "I have no further death wish, nor a quarrel. I have a question for you."

Kenshin snorted, a resounding thunderclap answered with him. "Ask your question, vampire. Then leave."

Enishi smiled, the shine in his eyes growing. Demented mirth swirled in them as he stepped closer to the motionless Shadow. "Your son-"

"Do not go near my son," Kenshin warned.

Enishi smiled again. "Like you are never here for him? Always gone, this taker of the rains." He waved his hand pleasantly to the black heavens.

Kenshin bared his fangs. "He is secured in my ward, vampire, and he is of my own flesh and blood. It is not my will to leave him for however the amount of time. I have no choice in the matter. Yours, however, is to continue or be brought a death much deeper then the one you are in now."

"So very touchy about your possessions, Kenshin."

"Get on with it!"

"This should be interesting," Enishi began again after taking time to laugh, his wild blood red eyes drinking everything in for his own gratifying enjoyment. "Though, I could imagine that you already know. He is your son, after all."

"Know what?" Kenshin asked cautiously.

"Do you not know, Shadow?" Enishi paused and began to pace, watching Kenshin like a captured animal. "Your own son is one of my people, a rejection from the Mother. A halfling. He is not human, neither Shadow. He is mine. Vampire. Surely, you do not want such a creature living under you."

Kenshin roared, lunging for the vampire. He slammed Enishi, carrying him easily into a large tree. The trunk splintered and snapped under the force of impact. The ground quaked, but not from the rumble of thunder.

With his hands gripping Enishi's neck, he snarled. "You lie!"

Enishi managed a choking chuckled around the stone fingers. The muscles of his neck stretched and contracted around Kenshin's claws dug deep into the vampire's neck.

"I would not lie to you- "Enishi hardly rasped between the crushing force of Kenshin's squeezing grip. The vampire, though many times more resilient than a human, was not well defended nearly enough to save himself from the power of the Shadow. The tough skin was pierced easily as a knife to warm butter.

"I hope you would not," Kenshin remarked, his words expressing clearer than cold water that he meant just the opposite. He let the vampire go, walking back to the doorway. "I have no true need to end your existence yet."

Thin blood darkening his ghostly skin and hair, Enishi's eyes, matching the coating of fluid staining him, glittered like a child's with excitement and glee, frenetic joy. "Perhaps you do. Perhaps you do not," he grinned.

"Kenshin!" Kaoru screamed from inside. A crack of lightning struck the sky. For that moment, it could have passed for daylight.

"Enishi!" Kenshin whirled under the torrents of rain but the vampire was gone. Kaoru screamed again in anger followed by a loud crash sounding like a crumbling wall.

Kenshin snapped his wings, folding them and using the powerful momentum to carry him down the long, open hall to the entrance to the inner home. He slammed the door wide, not sparing the time to wait for it to open all the way. It fell from its hinges with a clatter long after the Shadow had left the dark room.

He sped down the halls, passing the many closed doors until he found them. They were trying to keep to the shadows but wild red eyes glowed indiscreetly. Their soft footsteps were swiftly taking them down the darken hall to the right. Soft, angry snaps of fang as they quarreled amongst themselves clacked, growling in short spurts from inhuman mouths. The strong scent of death followed behind their wake as they rushed down the hall, disappearing around the far corner.

Instead of following them, Kenshin turned to the left, down the hall to the room Kaoru had taken as her own. The steady rhythm of a speeding heartbeat met his ears, and her breath was sharp and quick. Kenshin framed the entryway, the door in splinters across the floor. One of the creatures lay writhing at his feet, its legs kicking spastically. Kenshin booted it over roughly and it hissed a spitting guttural scrape against its throat. Red eyes snapped up to his face and fangs decorated its open mouth. It hissed again, slinking to it feet.

Kenshin let it raise, surprise brushing over his eyes. Before him was a man; or what was a man once. The red eyes, but not nearly as dark as Einishi's, and fangs, close to the length of Enishi's, but not enough. These were a bit shorter, able to be hidden completely inside the mouth, even when open. This man was a made vampire.

Kenshin growled, stepping quickly as the vampire stood, piercing his claws into the cold flesh. It squirmed as if uncomfortable, then walked forward, pushing Kenshin's arm until his fingers protruded from the thing's back. Mouth open, its breath drowned Kenshin in the strong scent of blood, old and sour. Its hiss gurgled unpleasantly, spitting blood on Kenshin's face. The Shadow snarled.

The crazed vampire screamed a high shriek, loud and piercingly painful even to human ears. That could not have come from this creature. It clawed at what part of Kenshin's arm that was not embedded in its abdomen. The nails were like humans to the eye, but Kenshin felt the steel-like quality that raked his sleeve to ribbons floating lazily into the blood on the floor. Even so, there was not a mark on his tight skin covering taunt muscles.

With a bored snort, Kenshin jerked back, pulling his arm from the vampire's stomach, and bringing a piece of its spine in hand. With a wet, sucking pop the vampire crumple to the ground, eyes wide and fading to a dull green—the color his eyes must have been before. Kenshin tossed the white and bloodied bone to the side, kicking the corpse along with it to clear the way.

He searched the darkness in the room, the strong smell of jasmine and fear in the air. With her heart slowly becoming steady, Kenshin peered easily into the black to a pair of glistening sapphires.

"Kaoru," He held his bloodied hand out for her.

She stood where she was, calming herself with deep breaths. Kaoru slowly walked to him, never taking her eyes from his expressionless face. She looked down at his hand, and stopped. Such controversy over a simple matter: taking his hand. Though, as she gazed at the dripping blood from long claws, the argument, however it was to turn out in her mind, she would never know. Her decision was already made one raining day ten years passed, one snow-covered day when the confusion was dispersed and unrest sedated. Kaoru took Kenshin's hand. She had sealed her fate with rain, his rain.

The blood pooled on the floor made it slick, and she slipped but he caught her with his other hand before she could think of uttering a sound. Captured by the sudden pain in her eyes, Kenshin missed the vampire until it had taken Kaoru from his grasp.

It barreled into the human, hissing horribly as it—a woman this time—pinned Kaoru to the ground. The vampire bared her fangs, light red eyes staring wildly at Kaoru's neck. The vampire bent to grasp the soft flesh and drink what flowed heavily within, drawn to the thundering pulse point as Kaoru screamed.

Kenshin roared and the vampire screamed much like the first one had. The woman's blood splashed across Kaoru's front, staining her light purple sleeping gown and painting her face. Kenshin lifted the flailing woman off of her, and she saw the long piece of wood skewering into the vampire's side, a long trail of intestine hanging from the sharp end that extended from the opposite shoulder. Kaoru turned her face away, retching to the side.

Kenshin slammed the woman to the ground, bones crunching each time as each thumping stroke echoed down the halls. Its scream grew louder with each hit, her blood covered face, never straying, her eyes never leaving Kenshin's. She hissed, spitting from bleeding lips in front of pearl white fangs.

"If you wished to die," he snarled, holding her high above him. His amber eyes burned like bright candles in the near-pitch dark. "Then you should have chosen true death!"

A surge of energy, raw power, exploded from Kenshin. As it snaked its way through the room, Kaoru's skin began to crawl as it softly swept over her. She shivered. Once it touched the woman, her scream was silenced. She died instantly, mouth wide open and soft blue eyes staring into nothing, with a stake in her heart.

Kenshin quickly tossed the finished vampire with the other one and gathered Kaoru in his arms, ignoring the blood soaked nightgown.

"Kenshin," she asked softly as he quietly moved down another hall at the back of the home. "What are they?"

"Vampire. Spawn of Enishi," he said angrily.

"How?" she gasped.

"A bite. That is how Shadow were created. A bite directly from the Mother. This trait must have remained with him when he was thrown from our ranks, and he has been creating more." Kenshin was seething, biting each word as they passed his lips.

"Why? What does he want here?" She looked up into his stern face.

"Why? I do not know, but it is expected of him to multiply as the first of his new species. We should have known he would, and killed him beforehand. What he wanted here," he paused, "was Kenji."

Kaoru's eyes widened. "What could he possibly want with Kenji?"

"He is convinced that Kenji is one of his own."

"A vampire?" she shook her head. "He cannot be a vampire, Kenshin, look at him. He has wings. Claws. Long fangs."

"As did Enishi before he was stripped of his powers," he snapped.

"This is completely different," she insisted.

He stopped, looking beyond the top of her head to a young form lying on the floor. The smell of blood floated heavily on the air. Kaoru gasped as Kenshin set her on her feet. He held his hand up when she tried to run to Kenji; she stayed, her face masked with worry. He treaded silently through the dark pool, nearly black in the dull night filling the room. Four bodies, torn nearly to pieces, lay not far from the boy, but far enough from his mother's view. Kenshin smiled.

Kenji had feathers torn from his wings, one almost broken. Deep, bleeding bites covered his arms, and his neck. The boy was not waking.

Kaoru, having stepped behind Kenshin, who stood to hide the mutilated bodies of the vampires that the boy had defeated, brushed Kenji's blood-matted hair from his stone face.

Kenshin watched her face take in the state of her son, their son. There was sadness, of course, and a questioning indecision in her blue, blue eyes. That somber uncertainty has lingered on the edge of her gaze since the three years gone by when he found her in the northern forests. Only during certain times did it ever show itself, giving a soft grey tint that spread like wildfire through the pure cerulean, tainting with its hovering smoke the deep oceans of her eyes. These eyes found Kenshin's face, and for a first, he felt slightly uncomfortable under her haunting gaze. The words of his son echoed in his mind, filtering down where his solid heart sat cold and distant, forever away from the touch of the world. Its slow, constant beat sounded as thunder in his ears. The sensation of hurt, pain, emotion strong enough to take a slightly warm grip in his chest, was to alien, so different. He hadn't a clue what to do with it, but he began to hate this color of those grey-clouded, sapphire eyes.

"We must go," Kenshin said. Kaoru was still looking into his amber orbs, supposed to be of fire but of nothing like the sort. Not from what always lacked to lie behind. There was nothing behind to truly fuel such a flame. Until, perhaps, now. "There is something I have to finish, and neither of you are leaving my sight," he ended in a growl.

Kaoru nodded solemnly, her eyes dull. Kenshin turned with Kenji in his arms, walking up the hall to reach the side door on the western wing of the building, the closest to the outside from where they were. He set his jaw, his teeth creaking loudly in his ears at the slight tug he felt in his chest.

Outside, the air was angry, the physical manifestation of Kenshin's boiling insides hot with rage, but for now the rain slowed to a light trickle. Two vampires battled one another, their screams intertwining as they savagely tore into each other, biting enough to splinter bone. Quickly, one ripped the other's throat open, the echoing calls lasting longer than the fallen body. The one left tossed his head side to side, growling deep in his throat as he bent down to smear his face across the dead vampire's chest and neck.

Enishi appeared at the edge of the tree line, stalking towards the vampire. The man stood quickly, hissing softly as he stepped out from Enishi's way. He knelt a far distance from the silver-haired vampire. A soft mewling slithered from the vampire's mouth as he began to crawl towards Enishi. He reached a hand at the hem of Enishi's pants, the mewling taking a higher squealing quality. Enishi grasped a fistful of hair, twisting the whimpering vampire away from him to face the growing puddle of blood spreading across the ground. The vampire's mewl became savage, and it lunged forward, its eyes seeking to satisfy the bloody hunger it possessed. Enishi held the struggling vampire by the hair, watching silently as the man wrenched to free himself. A moist rip tore open the skin on the vampire's scalp as he pulled, even as Enishi held the hair that peeled back the skin. Still gripping the vampire, Enishi bent to dip his hand in the blood, sloshing in the puddle of muddy blood like a child playing and splashing in leftover rainwater. The vampire mewled louder, tugged with inhuman strength to reach what it wanted.

Enishi released the vampire, who stumbled with a satisfied splash into the dark pool, lapping greedily. Ignoring the vampire making eagerly happy noises, Enishi's blood-red eyes jumped to the Shadow, flicking to the boy in his arms, and settling pleasingly on Kaoru. He smiled.

Kenshin placed the boy on the ground and straightened in one swift move, starting grimly toward the vampires as a single misplaced beam of sunlight pierced the thick, black clouds, drenching him in warmth. Enishi screamed, shying away from the light as his skin peeled back from his hand, shriveling under the harsh glare. The drinking vampire immediately burst into flames licking white-hot into the dank air. It had no time to scream as it incinerated. Enishi was already gone.

Kaoru pulled Kenji to her, kneeling beside him as she gently stroked his face. She marveled as the stray stream of sun danced across Kenshin's pale skin. Here, the stone cold Shadow looked warm and soft, wholly inviting. His black feathers shone, shimmering in ripples like water even when not in motion. The deeper coloration of his hair was ablaze, truly now as the flame under the caressing sunshine. Bright amethyst orbs peered through the haze from the first true sight of the sun her eyes had seen in three years.

"Come," he said softly. "We must go."

**RKRKRKRK**

"Kenshin, where are we going so quickly?" Kaoru had asked as they flew over the blurred lands.

"I have been summoned, and I said already, neither of you are leaving my sight."

She frowned, her question having not been answered.

"You will see," he had assured her. "You will see."

After her gasp of amazement, she could not fathom why she would have not believed him. When Kenshin finally did slow the pace of his wings, they were over a foreign land Kaoru had never seen nor heard of. The grass below, tall enough to reach slightly above the ankle, was emerald, the purest of green that simply glowed under the watchful sun hanging clear and largely closer than usual in the sky such a clear blue it could, in just a few more darker shades, resemble her eyes. Streaks of white did float lazily, thin and long; nothing like the boiling caldron burning the skies and spilling with overflow of its contents to the far, far ground below. These clouds were harmless and not filled with rain.

A backdrop of trees straight ahead decorated a darker but none less emerald color of the grass off in the eastward distance of the wide, seemingly endless field of waving blades that stretched out behind them. Standing above these trees was a point, thin and seemingly to be easily broken by any fiercer gust of wind. This point was the beckon the Shadow followed, and they soon eased over the first branches of the forest.

Kenshin halted, his wings waving in turn with each other to keep them all above the ground in the enjoyably warm air. He surveyed this land like this too was his first.

"Where are we?" Kaoru asked, taking in the strikingly deep purple flowers gracefully dancing in the gentile arms of the breeze to the right at the edge of where the meadow ended and the woodland began.

"This land…" he began, but paused. "This land is the home to someone. Someone so very important to all my kind." Kenshin tilted her reluctant gaze with his fingers from the breathtaking landscape to his eyes. She temporarily forgot the perfected scenery at the intensity of his gaze. It seemed so open, to speak. They were so alive. There was a light, hidden in the permanent dark he was placed under, that she could finally see. Maybe it was his eyes, maybe it was the sun, it could very well have been both, but Kaoru fluttered inside with such joy.

Then he smiled. It was no different from the ones he expressed before, except his eyes lit up. His smile reached his eyes and they blossomed like fresh flowers awakening that only bloom once the morning sun bathed them in light.

"Kenshin-" she breathed.

He shook his head, his wings carrying them forward above the tall trees. He glanced at Kenji in his arm, Kaoru in the other. "I was summoned."

Kaoru ruefully tore her gaze from his face, and gasped yet again. The point that rose above the tree line followed down to the most pristine structure. The soft grey stones that consisted of the huge castle glimmered, laughing amongst themselves as sunlight reflected from their faces. Light brown wood decorated the four corners, and lined the curled roof edge. The crown rose upward, pulling itself higher and smaller with thinner and thinner platforms every so distance until nothing but the tip was left. A minute number of windows lay open to a few darken rooms; Kaoru could not see inside any of them. The large doors—balanced on each side by a large archway etched in a swirling design carved into the rounded slabs—were of the same soft brown wood, thicker and much stronger than she first thought it to be. That same design on the arch was, as Kaoru noticed when Kenshin set her down and she got a closer look, carved into all of the stone. It was also etched with black thread into Kenshin's black pants.

Kenshin stepped to the door and was minuscule by it. He opened it as if instead he pulled a leaf from the branches of a dead tree. He settled Kenji securely in his arms and turned. His eyes clearly beckoned her to him.

Inside was hard to see; it was dark. At a point in their walking, Kaoru gripped the sleeve of the Shadow to not stray from him. There was a faint scent in the air that she could not identify; it was not strong enough to discern.

Another pair of doors—smaller than the first outside but still relatively large—loomed before them. This wood was bright, and needed no help from the lack of light to be seen. With only the barest of hesitation, Kenshin opened a door, and bright light blinded Kaoru.

She blinked, willing away the spots in front of her vision. When her eyes adjusted, she took an involuntary step into Kenshin's back, pressing close.

Standing in another corner of the room, was that biggest man she had ever seen. He easily towered over Kenshin's smaller form, and his large, muscular arms were crossed over a barrel chest that threatened to burst from the cloth of his navy shirt, similar to the point of near perfection to Kenshin's crimson. This man's sleeves did not end in wide cuffs, but were straight, cleanly cut, and only reached his elbow. Black armguards were decorating the lower part of his arm up to his knuckles on expectedly large hands. His long, black mane was tied at the base of his neck, loose locks flowing down the front, and short bangs hanging across his forehead. The pure black pants he wore were woven in black thread with the anticipated design of swirls.

"Are the others here?" Kenshin asked without turning away from placing Kenji on a heavily padded mat placed neatly on the floor. He lowered Kaoru to sit next beside their son.

"Not yet," the Shadow's deep bass languidly flowed from his mouth. He opened eyes so brown, they shamed the very soil the structure was built upon. "They are quickly on their way."

Kenshin nodded slowly, mirroring the almost sluggish movements of the other, whose eyes had flicked suddenly to Kaoru. A thin smile, derogatory in nature, drew his lips upward.

"Hiko," Kenshin warned. "Speak, and we will see if brute strength can overcome years."

Hiko's smile wiped from his face, but his eyes still held to it. "Don't leave them to gawk for much longer. Blood is staining the furnishings."

Kenshin snorted. "I need to know why we are here. It is still slightly early for the usual reasons."

"I do not know." Hiko fluidly pushed from the wall, his frame lumbering over Kaoru as he walked past. "Clean her up," he said with his back to them, "before she goes into a shock. Humans are such a frail creature. Can you be so careless?"

Kenshin snarled. The Shadow's seemingly caring words were meant absolutely nothing but as a mockery for Kenshin. Hiko never outright called him stupid, but forever found other methods to make his fine point clear.

He barely had the chance to persuade Kaoru to stand when the doors opened again. Hiko returned, but with two others following behind. Kaoru immediately recognized Megumi, the Shadow's cinnamon eyes studying her with mild disgust. The third was another man, tall and well-built under his ashen black shirt. His black hair was cut much shorter than the others', but it hung past his ears on all sides and bangs shaded over his face well. Pale ocean green-blue eyes shone through the thin locks of hair hanging past his forehead.

They all greeted one another in the similar manner: a name spoken slowly as thick honey, a nod, and silence once finished. There seemed to be someone missing from the immediate circle the four created around the room, Kenshin the only one looking to not be in his place. Kaoru and Kenji were seated in his place. And they waited.

Megumi lounged gracefully in another cushioned mat lying on the floor with a rather uninterested expression on her face. She sat nearly directly across from Kaoru. To Megumi's left a ways away in the broad space of the room stood Hiko, his arms folded against his chest. Then, the one Kaoru heard them name Aoshi leaned against the wall to the left of Hiko. Next, was, of course, Kenshin standing up and out of the unclear line. Last, was an empty gap facing the doors.

Kaoru never heard them move but suddenly all were sprouting their twin pairs of night-black wings, each tipped in a distinct color. Kenshin a dull grey as clouds, Megumi a soft bluish-white for snow and ice, Hiko a dark brown, and Aoshi a cool deep blue; the last two standing for whichever they were Shadow of. Her heart leapt into her throat as the doors opened a final time to reveal the petit form of a woman.

Long, silken hair a black that the night itself would envy flowed down between her feathered wings and formed a dark halo around her deathly pale face. The wings, eight of them in all, were folded elegantly against her back, the tips shone in the brightest of yellows before molding into the normal black again. Her footsteps were fluid and graceful, flowing as a gentile stream. But the stream, Kaoru felt from the very presence of this woman, could just as soon turn into a deadly flood, overtaking and destroying everything in its path. Her Shadow-spawn suddenly stood on either side of her, Kenshin standing by her right side with an eerie and far-away look in his hard amber eyes. The others held passive expressions, calm against the rising fear in the human.

The Shadow, the Mother—Kaoru knew she could be nothing else—stopped in front of her, the soft brown eyes peering as if seeing into her very soul. Kaoru shivered under the power of this beautiful creature. The Mother turned, this movement seeming calculated and perfect, to gaze into the eyes of Kenshin. Perhaps the woman truly could see one's spirit.

She outstretched a hand toward Kenji as he lay on the padding at his mother's side. Kaoru barely opened her mouth in a sudden protest that fear wrenched from her. The Mother shot her through with a piercing gaze that stilled the Shadow around her, only the ruffling the feathers of their wings whispering into the silence. Such a shine in the eyes of anything could never have surpassed the bright yellow orbs that bore into her. Kaoru knew, had the sun the ability to see with eyes, she was now looking into them, frozen under the burning chill.

The muscles of Kenshin's back rippled as he strained his arms with clenched fists, the movement causing his wings to rise higher from their resting perch and quiver terribly.

"Calm yourself," she spoke. Her voice was warm as rays of sun and hard as ice. If her body's movements were like water, then her voice had nothing to compare. How it soothed like a breeze under the beating sun, and froze with the very essence. Kaoru began to feel overwhelmingly faint.

The Mother grazed the boy's forehead with her cold fingertips. Kaoru could not breathe. Kenji's eyes opened, slowly and without any consciousness as he stared into his mother's face. Kaoru dared not let the sudden sob escape her tightly closed mouth, her hand pressed over her trembling lips.

The Mother lifted her hand, and the boy followed. Unconscious, Kenji stood to his feet as if pulled by a string held in the Mother's hand, his face upturned to never stray from the cold touch. The Mother pulled her hand further from the boy and, instead of following blindly still, he shrank back down, crumbling over into his mother's waiting arms.

The Mother turned back to Kenshin, and Kaoru settled the boy in her lap, carefully watching each other presences in the room. The Mother's expressionless face far outmatched those of her spawn. She spoke words that were meant to be reassuring, but there was hardly any feeling in her voice.

"Your son is not that which you presumed him to be, yet neither is he what you hoped him to be. He has no ties to me," she slowly blinked, peering deeper past Kenshin's perfectly built barriers. "These marks upon his skin are nothing, as if those vile creatures had despoiled you instead. There is nothing to fear from them. He will heal." The Mother was silent for a time, gliding past Kenshin. She stopped, the long, flowing skirt swayed, sifting across the floor in a whisper. The Mother turned to face the Shadow again, and seemed to add, "I have no rejection towards him."

Kenshin visibly relaxed his tense form at the words that confused and further fed the fear Kaoru harbored. She pulled the boy close, lightly kissing his hair. The actions from the Mother put the Shadow to motion. Each silently began to glide toward the doorway. With a shaky breath and ignoring the devastating energy drowning the room filled with powerful beings, Kaoru quietly began to sing:

_Ghostly light of the moon_

_Eternally beneath with never to be_

_Sound of wings anew, soft on the wind_

_And alighted with no other any longer,_

_And broken like no other will._

_Pale light of the sun_

_Over the only seeing eyes to_

_The watching waited catch, weary for the bone_

_To touch where no other might,_

_To feel what no other may._

_Calling, calling_

_For you, is the calling._

_Answer, answer_

_As only one, the only one can._

_For with you, there can be no other._

Kaoru's voice faded, her forehead lying on the boy's head above his brow. Kaoru felt a warm tingle run across her skin like cold water, and she looked up into the Mother's eyes. Her expressionless face was changed, different somehow. Curiosity, maybe, lay hidden just behind her formidable barriers as she watched and, no doubt, had listened to the quietly sung lullaby from mother to child.

"The lullaby," The Mother said to Kaoru, who noticed then that only the woman before her remained in the room. The others all had gone on silent feet. "It is such a solemn melody to sing for a child."

Kaoru nodded, gazing lovingly at her son's smooth face, peaceful now. "It is. But it also is his favorite. It is all he wants to hear."

The Mother studied Kenji with a steady gaze, looking up to Kaoru with not but a small change in her expression, and then followed after her absent spawn.

**RKRKRKRK**

"Kaoru," Kenshin spoke, waking her from her uncomfortable sleeping position. Kenji was asleep still, sprawled with his head lying on her stomach. He did not move with the shift of breathing or anything else until Kenshin scooped the boy into his arms. The deep fang marks were nearly completely smoothed over with clean, pale flesh.

Kaoru discerned her surroundings with hazy, sleep-ridden eyes. She peered at Kenshin, their darker shade of blue sparking with flecks of grey that stood out clearer than usual.

"Come," he said. She followed him out into the dark hall. The darkness swallowed him; she could not see her own hand as she held it before her to search for him. A hand caught her wrist and she screamed, short and curt at the sudden latch. Soft amethyst eyes gazed back at her calmly and she smiled, embarrassed.

"Is this how the entire structure is displayed?" Kaoru asked with her fist clenched on his sleeve. He could surely see in this nothing.

"In the dark?" Kenshin confirmed what she asked. "No. Only the main hall is. It is the only way to get from room to room. Rooms, however, are well lit. You have no need to worry."

"I am not worried," she said. "But, where are we going?"

"I am taking you to a quarter to stay. We could be here for a short time." They took a small but sharp turn, and her sleeve caught the wall. Kenshin's next step was quick and long; she had to immediately jump forward to not loose her hold of him.

"What of you?" she asked, inspecting the material of her sleeve with her free hand for a rip.

"I will come whenever time allows it." Kenshin lifted her up suddenly and set her down again to continue.

"What were you summoned for, Kenshin?" Kaoru tugged his shirt.

"Another time, little one. Please," he added to her shifting mood and readying remark to his avoiding the question.

"Alright," she relented.

Kaoru jumped to Kenshin's side when the wall beside them collapsed inward, blinding her in a wash of sunlight. She blinked the spots away and saw the shimmering waves of green, green grass. It was not a wall that collapsed, but a door to the outside that had opened. In the frame, silhouettes of a woman and an animal stood.

"Megumi," Kenshin said, turning toward the Shadow. The creature beside her growled, its broad shoulders easily reaching past her elbow, its head higher still. "Keep your pet restrained this time if it is to stay," he spoke teasingly, but not to Megumi. The animal snorted.

Kaoru could see its deep brown fur, long and a bit shabby. It held the look of wild hair, spiking in different directions at the joints of its legs, shoulders, and atop its head, but it was oddly very clean. Its skull was large with a long snout concealing the without a doubt vicious mouthful of teeth. Its ears were as long as her forearm and seeming to have been pulled back and up, thinning as it reached above and slightly back from its head with tuffs of fur sprouting at the points. Tall, lengthy legs ended in wide paws decorated in thick claws that curled downward and dug the very tips into the soil.

Megumi ran her hand lovingly over the wolf's head, stroking down its back. "He is as controlled as he ever will be."

The creature turned its head to her, a humanistic frown in its eyes. He snorted again and padded into the dark hall, claws clacking across the stone floor. It stopped next to Kaoru, and it had to tilt its head down to look at her. She watched it sniff slightly, it nostrils quivering. It seemed to be laughing when dark brown eyes peered directly into her own. There was a faint recognition that crossed her face, something familiar with those eyes.

"Are the others with him?" Kenshin asked.

Megumi nodded. "They are."

As if cued, three more of the same animals bounded for the door. One was only slightly smaller than the first and covered in midnight black, unruly fur. The second and less bulky framed animal was likewise black, but of a softer tone. The third was clearly young, it being covered in fluffier black fur, and lagged behind the longer strides of the first two. It yipped angrily, bouncing on slightly unsteady legs to keep up.

"The whole of what was left." Kenshin stated as the trio filed in through the open door, the sound of clicking claws clattering louder in the wide, quiet hall. "Why are they all here?"

Megumi raised her shoulders in what was a most elegant shrug. "I do not bother myself with the troubles of Demons."

"Demons?" Kaoru asked. The female wolf-creature lifted her head from licking off her young one, who squirmed from his mother's cleaning touch. The female padded to Kaoru's side and sat, having to look down with an animal grin. "Tsubame?"

The wolf's long furred tail wagged happily.

"What are you doing here?" she asked Tsubame, now recognizing Yahiko, Sanosuke, and the little Shinya. Tsubame's mouth fell open and her tongue lolled in a wolfish smile.

Yahiko stood off against the dark and emitted a growling bark, speaking with his pack. Tsubame followed, ushering Shinya down the shady hall. Sanosuke stayed, sitting down by Megumi's side. His head reached above hers, the ears adding to the tall affect.

"Your taste," Kenshi said as he began to walk again, "will always confound me, Megumi. Wolves never seemed your sort."

"As humans never seemed yours," she answered just as coldly. Her voice floated with them, smooth and tainted with a bit of discreetly placed meanings. "But the taste, as you say, is rather interesting."

A sound something like a purring growl rumbled from Sano's chest and hummed into the air.

Kaoru shivered.

"Are you cold, little one?" Kenshin asked.

"That," Kaoru nodded, glancing over her should as the light faded and the soft suction of air swooshed as the door closed. "Or perhaps the chill that grazed down my spine." She gasped as cold fingers swept her back. "Not that one," she glanced at him from the corner of her eye.

Kenshin chuckled. "Would you want a bath, little one?"

Kaoru looked down and saw nothing but black. However, the mention of cleaning caused every spot of dried blood and dusty dirt to rub against her skin uncomfortably. She shuddered.

"I would not like anything else for the moment." She followed him as he pulled to the left, a quick right, and then turned fully to the left again. A warm light surprisingly spilled into the hall, illuminating the hallway. Kenshin immediately grew tense as Kaoru looked around at her surroundings. The walls were barren of any decorations and were the same color as the stones outside, only very much less radiant and had no etching embedded in the faces of the rocks. The floor, however, was very peculiar. It was raised above the ground, which still remained unseen and in the dimmer touch of the light, but it was also very broad. Broad enough for four men and a horse to trod in a row, but apparently in only certain areas. Kaoru had to fall in behind Kenshin so not to drop over the edge for a step or two. Curiously, as the platform broadened once more, she stepped to the edge of the platform and screamed.

Down below was strewn with skeletons. Human skulls silently screamed and laughed up at her from wide and seldom broken jaws. Bones of limbs scattered in a thick layer, broken or shattered into shards. A hand eternally reached its spindly fingers for her.

A rough grasp clasped her arm, hauling her into a room before she could see any further. Kenshin shut the door behind him.

"W-w-," Kaoru drew breaths into her lungs, staring at the frustrated Shadow. "What was that down there?"

Kenshin's brow wrinkled. "There are many who have sought out to destroy the Mother, thinking to take her would take the Shadow as well from the land. As seen, they have all failed."

Kaoru sputtered and sat upon the padded mat of a bright blue color. "But why leave the men behind? F-for decoration? Amusement? Can you not give them a proper burial?!"

"They laid their lives down for a stupid cause. We do not move them from here."

"There is no sanctity in that!"

"There is no sanctity in any of us!" Kenshin roared. "You have chosen me! For some unholy, forsaken reason you have! You can choose to return to what you were, but could you survive the separation? This bond, no matter how weak it really is, will not simply take a sudden change in mind, little one. You gave up yourself to me, no matter how you think it to really be. This was your own choice. If you cannot live with the corruption of me, you are but a small flame to my foot, easily snuffed from existence."

Kaoru stood, placing her finger onto the stone flesh of his chest. Her sapphire eyes were dark and stormy, much like a sea tossed and turned by clouds of a tempest. "Do not bring me into this. Do not bring yourself. That—bodies of hundreds of men—has nothing to do with us!"

"Doesn't it? Does it bother you that I had a hand in the death of many of those souls?"

"Why are you like this?" she whispered. "Ever since three years ago you have been this way. Why? What do you have against me?"

Kenshin began to breathe, a clear sign the Shadow was bothered by something worth bringing the human habits out from their long dead shell. "There is no grudge against you, little one." He pulled her to his chest, ignoring the powerful scent of blood tainting her smell. "You are more persistent that I would have ever imagined."

"Then there are motives behind it?" She said to the cloth covering his chest. Where the clothing should have been warm from being worn close to a body, it had only gathered the chill of Kenshin's skin.

"Motives? Perhaps they are, yes. There has always been something that troubled me about you, Kaoru."

"What is it?"

"Why? Why would you wish to be with me?"

Kaoru looked up into his eyes. "You have asked me that before."

He titled his head to the side. "I never received an answer."

She shook her head, a playful smile spread across her lips. "I still cannot answer you. I do not know. Especially with your change in demeanor towards me."

Kenshin's lip twitched upward, but the smile shone in his eyes, unlike it ever did before.

"Answer me something, before I bathe?"

He nodded.

"What has changed that your eyes are not dead as they usually are?"

Kenshin blinked. He chuckled. "Dead? As good a comparison I will get. I will explain. Then not more questions. You will rest."

Kaoru smiled.

"It all simply ties together to the Mother. We are spawned from her. It was a bite from her, her own poison that consumed us and changed us into this. Shadow under the Sun."

"I saw her eyes. I should have guessed her to be the sun."

Kenshin nodded, looking up to the tall ceiling above them. "We are connected in a fiercely strong bond, being directly descended from her. If she were to die, then perhaps so would we."

"So those men were all correct?" Kaoru gasped.

"Yes. We do not know, however, if we will die in completion. Perhaps it will only strip us of our abilities. Perhaps we will follow her into oblivion. We do not know."

"Then, we hope we will never have to find the answer that question."

Kenshin peered into her eyes with a single nod. "That we all do."

Kaoru turned fearfully to Kenji. "If it was to somehow take place and the Mother did loose her life, what would become of him?"

"There are no true ties with him to her. He would be the only one not affected. It was what I wanted to know, if the boy was a vampire or Shadow. He is neither. The Mother told us so."

Kaoru covered her hand over her heart. She knelt by Kenji and brushed his hair from his face as it splayed undone from its tie about his head.

"That is what she said. She was explaining his condition."

"Yes. The illustration with her hand was…for your assurance, I believe. I am not entirely sure. But there was no real need for her to even move to uncover the answer."

Kaoru nodded, leaning to place a gentile kiss on Kenji's brow.

"Come." Kenshin held his hand to her, placing the other on her shoulder. "The bathhouse is outside."

**RKRKRKRK**

Kaoru shuddered as Kenshin set her on the ground, steadying her with arms around her waist. The bright moon watched from the star-dotted velvet blue sky. The kiss of the soft breeze calmed her as Kenshin's hand ran the length of her back.

She gagged. "The smell was horrible!"

"It was the only way to reach to the bathhouse."

"Those men, they had to be freshly dead."

Kenshin nodded. "There was an attempt again a number of days ago, yes."

Kaoru read that his words were carefully prodded and picked before he spoke them. "Kenshin, what is it you are not telling me?"

"Truthfully? There are many things you are unaware of." His voice sounded strained, as if he was choking on the words. Forced like he would rather not be saying them. He buried his face in her hair, inhaling her scent of soft jasmine mixed with the strong flare of blood. "But, you cannot go without anymore. I will tell you, little one. I must."

She nodded, and he placed feather-light kisses along her jaw, his soft rumble rolling through her. The pleasant rumble solidified into a raging growl, and his arms tightened around her. His fangs slid free from between his lips. Kaoru froze. She almost asked what was distressing him when a pair of bright red eyes dropped from the night sky. A vampire shoved Kaoru to the ground as he slammed into one of Kenshin's arms. The Shadow buckled under the sudden force, but immediately picked both men to their feet as he stood. Kenshin swung his head to one, spitting an ear-shattering, hissing thunderclap into the vampire's face. The vampire grinned.

On the ground, Kaoru saw hiding in the shadows a form of a man. Blood red eyes stared out at her. Before she knew, a shadowed hand was reaching for her forehead, fingers outstretched. The scene flashed in her mind, a perfect mirror of the terrors that plagued her sleep. She screamed.

Enishi glanced at Kenshin struggling with the vampires. "These are not so easy to destroy," he said as if having a decent conversation. Kenshin growled. "These, as I recently found out, needed my blood after the bite in order to retain their intelligence. Silly of me to forget that important fact, but you must believe me, Kenshin. I will not be leaving anything else undone."

Kaoru crawled backwards away from his wild, predatory stare, but he was upon her faster than her eye could follow. The next of what she saw before nothing was trees blurring by and a crack of lighting that split open the sky.

Intelligent or no, Kenshin finished both vampires quickly. They lay in bloody heaps, scattered in near ribbons on the ground. His wings carried him much faster than Enishi could run, but he stopped short just as the strongest point of the vampire's stench slapped his nostrils. Smiling, Enishi held an unconscious Kaoru easily by the neck. Her feet dangled limply in empty air.

Enishi nearly laughed with glee when the sound of the waterfall roaring to the side screamed off the cliff, and touched Kenshin's ears. The vampire was not one to spend time to taunt this time; he dropped her the moment Kenshin opened his fanged mouth. She fell like a stone.

With no hesitation, Kenshin leapt, briefly parallel with the ground as Kaoru disappeared from view. He dove over the edge, ignoring Enishi for the time being as the vampire watched, amused. Kenshin snapped his wings in the artificial wind that roared in his ears, building speed to catch her fall. Suddenly, the black ground had gathered from the nothingness he saw before. It greedily reached up to snatch Kaoru before the Shadow could touch her, but, just as the earth seemed to rise swifter to meet her, Kenshin clasped her in his grip. He pulled upward with a wide spread of his wings to alight on his feet, Kaoru limp in his arms. He heard her heartbeat; it was steady and loud in his ears. As was the gentle rush of wind from above.

Kenshin looked up, and blood red eyes barreled down on him. Kenshin tucked Kaoru to his chest and positioned to absorb the unexpected blow, but he was not braced soon enough. Enishi collided, and the vampire's shoulder crunched audibly. Kenshin's legs collapsed from under him and he hit face down, Kaoru underneath him. A plume of rock and dirt billowed high and angry into the air.

The dust and the echoing crash settled as a smirk played at the corner of Enishi's mouth as he stumbled from the gaping mouth in the ground, pebbles and rocks clattering like rain all around. His shoulder was broken completely from the impact and misshaped his skin in an ugly crumpled, purple display. He peered down into the hole for a moment longer before turning his back and running. A trail of blood dripped from his fingers.

Kenshin shuddered uncontrollably as he pulled himself from under the weight of the caved rock and soil. He had a battered Kaoru in his arms. The wings of his back had not drawn fast enough and were bent far from their normal shape, feathers missing by the handful in bare patches. The bones snapped further, cracking as he drew them within, hissing in pain. They would heal faster then.

He still trembled as a quake and softly brushed Kaoru's bloody bangs from her closed eyes. He fisted his fingers in her hair at the base of her neck, drawing her to him. Enraged orbs of amber stared, distantly burning holes into the earth and farther, farther than he had ever dreamed of seeing before. He held her broken body until he calmed himself enough not to cause added damage with a simple touch. He heard her heartbeat as it fluttered and struggled to pump what was left of her quickly draining blood pooling around them. The warmth of the night quickly turned the sweet scent sour.

A small spurt of rain spit from the star-lit sky, pattering as Kenshin placed his hand in her blood, the gleam from the light glow above rippled in the near black liquid. He placed a finger to his lips, tasting slowly, watching her face become pale, and her heart nearly completely still.

"Kaoru," he whispered, touching her face with his bloodied hand. Leaning down, his red painted lips brushed over the mark he made. Fangs glided free from the sheaths as his eyes faintly glowed. They moved, shimmering their light on her face. He shut the glow from the world as he bit into her skin. He sealed her fate with blood.

**RKRKRKRKRKRKRKRK**

Well, there you have it folks. Wait. What? What was that? It says part one at the top? Well, whadya know! It does! Yes, that's what it means. The true conclusion will be in part two! Finally! This thing just keeps getting longer and longer, I tell you. You see, I was trying my best to keep all The Shadow to one-shots, but this still has about…20 pages, more or less, or so to go. I'm not sure they'd let you upload a chapter that long…or if anyone has the patience to read something that long in one sitting…

Anyway, so stick around for the epic conclusion to The Shadow! One more chapter to go! And just to be as clear as possible, it actually is a chapter not another one-shot. This also means…that the explanation of the first note above will have to wait. Haha! -Cough-

Thank you for reading and for any reviews that I know you want to give me! Haha! -Cough- Sheesh!


	2. Part Two

Now, this one would have to be by far the longest one. I won't say how many pages or what font cause it might send some of you packing. Haha. No, it's not too terribly, horribly long, right? I mean, some of it is author's notes and who reads those anyway? I would have to say it was the most fun one to write also. Can't say why…

I would also like to apologize for the misspelling of 'Enishi' throughout the first chapter. Thanks to a reviewer who spotted the mistake, I went back and replaced all the wrong with the right. I don't know how I got on to that spelling of his name. I thought I checked beforehand…It was quite embarrassing, really. If 'Einishi' actually is another way of spelling it, I honestly don't know if it is or not, so I'll just go by what the manga says and leave out that extra 'i' to be safe. So, thank you _Anonymous but very interested _for pointing that out.

This story is rated accordingly for language, graphic violence, and citrus stuff. The usual. Also, there is OOCness lurking, or not really lurking, around. So beware! Enjoy!

**Disclaimer:** Rurouni Kenshin does not belong to me. It all belongs to Watsuki-sama and all those other people who...bought rights, I guess. Anyone know how much that'd cost?

* * *

**The Shadow III**

**Shades in Folding**

**Part Two**

There was a scream. It rose into the color splashed sky of the setting sun. Red flamed the atmosphere, the falling burning ball its angry core. Slowly, the flames melted into a deep orange, sweeping out like fingers that delved into the faint pink outline. From there, the soft pink faded into a light green, swirling with the darkening sky of midnight blue.

The emerald grasses danced in a furor with the quickening breeze bringing a cold taste to the wind. It was bitter, growing colder as the sun's light shrank behind the horizon. The northern wind carried clouds, far off in the distance still. The cold winds were probing before the true storm followed in clashing glory of bolts and sounds to shatter the tranquil silence that had befallen the castle. The scream had already been swallowed by the vast space; drown into nothing, taken on wings with the pushing gusts.

A young boy paced in a candle-lit room, the flickering shadows cast upon the stone walls like entities of their own movement. His small hands were held tightly behind his winged back. The night-black feather rustled nervously as he was caught again by the deep brown eyes of the man lounging casually before him.

"Kenji, stop pacing," Sanosuke ordered, scratching behind his unruly haired head.

Kenji ignored him with a scowl. It was all the Demon had told him to do. He looked at Yahiko standing by an opened window, watching the sunset with Tsubame closely by his side. Her face shone in the red light and was washed in worry. Yahiko's snarl still had not completely left his lips or his hard eyes. Shinya was curled by Sano's side, having been angrily waved aside by Kenji one to many times. The young Demon's eyes were closed.

Kenji continued pacing, his bare feet patting softly across the floor. His wings unfurled and folded again against his back, ruffling.

"Damnit, Kenji! Sit down!" Sano barked.

"Leave him be!" Yahiko yelled. Tsubame turned to look at Kenji, whose shoulders sagged heavily.

"The boy will not stop pacing like a caged animal!" Sano protested heatedly. Shinya pulled away from leaning on the man's side. He glanced at his mother.

Yahiko snorted, growling something under his breath.

Tsubame knelt in front of Kenji, a warm smile on her lips as she spoke to him. "I understand that you would like to know what has happened. Your father will tell you in time. I myself would like to know."

Yahiko snorted again. She tossed a quick warning glare to him when Kenji moved away from her.

"Just stop pacing." Sano groaned as he stretched.

Kenji sat on a cushioned mat, its deep blue color nearly the same as his loose shirt. Silently, his wings drew within his back, and he fell backwards to lie across the cushion. Shinya quickly jumped from Sano to pounce beside Kenji. He sat, looking from Kenji to the others in the room. When he tried to start conversation with the young half-Shadow, Kenji just rolled to his side. Shinya slumped, at a loss. He again looked to his mother, but she stood with Yahiko once more. With a soft, inhuman whine, Shinya lay down, curling his legs to him, his back to the motionless Kenji.

* * *

Kenshin knelt. His flaming red hair was spilled over his shoulders, tossed forward from his bowed head. The darkness of the room swallowed the wings folded neatly on his back. The distinction of feather and blacken stone was impossible to the natural eye. The creatures before him, lurking in the captivating black, could see. He could see. The eyes of the supernatural, the unnatural, could see the world in a deeply shaded hue, smeared over with sharp blue, but clearly different and manageable from the blindness a human would stumble helplessly in.

Kenshin snarled; his body's muscles strung like cords under his skin as the blindingly fast strike took him from behind. He clashed with the floor, the clang of stone on stone echoing in the dark. Willing away the deep growl, he slowly pushed himself upright back to kneel, head down. However, his momentum was shoved further back, exaggerating his backwards motion with a force driven by the owner of deep, smiling, earthy brown eyes. The large hand pushed Kenshin's chin up, driving the back of his head into the floor. Hiko was gone, melding with the enveloping shadows, long before the echo dissipated.

Slightly dazed, Kenshin rolled to gather his legs under him. He rose, holding his stance again as another began to circle him. Kenshin refused to look up at the one standing before him now.

Radiant sea green glowed, lighting Aoshi's stoic features in the soft gleam. His chin-length fangs glinted. Night-black wings shimmered like the waves of the ocean with the faint glow. Aoshi struck Kenshin, a loud snarl tearing from his throat as he silted deep into flesh with claws. Kenshin lunged forward, staring up at the taller Shadow with glowing amber orbs. He roared angrily.

Hiko and Megumi converged on the brawl, a hiss screaming from her as her fangs found Kenshin's throat, sinking into the pulsing vein. Hiko wrenched Kenshin from Aoshi, dragging him to the floor. Megumi detached her fangs before Kenshin fell, and slid back some from them, slinking around the hissing and snarling men, licking blood from her lips. Her eyes were bright, laughing. When the opportunity arose, she slid to her knees, looking down on Kenshin's bloodied, snarling face, and lowered to him. Angry, savage eyes flicked to her; she smiled, lazily tracing her tongue over a thick trail of blood running down Kenshin's brow. He hissed, lashing out even with the weight of the other two pressing him down, to rip into her shoulder with his own fangs. She shrieked, rearing to strike.

"Enough," the soft, chilled voice rose as thunder in the ears of the Shadow.

Immediately, the writhing flesh became as stone, frozen before they disappeared as one into the black, leaving Kenshin solely on his back. Slower, Kenshin rolled to his side, pushing almost gingerly to his knees. He raised one leg, bent at the knee, to rest on his foot and swayed. In front of him, Kenshin saw the fabric of the Mother's dark cream colored skirt brush by him, stopping without so much a rustle.

He swallowed—a drastically humanistic gesture—before speaking calmly to the unspoken question. "There was no other choice,"

The Mother's voice was serene, but firm, colder than ice. "There are always alternatives to the paths before us. You had a further choice." The calmness in her tone was briefly stripped away, revealing an accusing frost that burned.

"It was not an option I was willing to take,"

"The choice was made for you before the choosing ever began," the Mother said sharply. "Whether you are willing or not, I chose for you. As I did for each of your siblings."

As she spoke, the three remaining Shadow slowly emerged from the black, standing reverently around the woman. Each Shadow stood taller than her, but there was a deep obedience and a powerful fear for this smaller woman; the woman who created each of them. The Mother almost lovingly reached to brush fingers over their brows, down their faces.

Another scream rose from within the castle, long and high in a shrill pitch.

"She would have perished," Kenshin said between clenched teeth. His eyes were tightly closed.

The Mother paused, her fingers hovering over the torn flesh of Megumi's shoulder. Her hand tenderly pressed against the bloody skin. The Mother slowly turned her head to face Kenshin, and swiftly raked sudden claws across the wound, pushing downward. Megumi shrieked, collapsing to the floor. Aoshi and Hiko did not raise a finger, did not flinch, and did not look; they were still.

The Mother touched her lips, tasting the liquid, then lifted Kenshin's chin with the same hand. Her eyes swirled with bright yellow light, chasing the shadows away like rays from sun itself.

"Humans perish. A human life need not be saved, Kenshin," she spoke his name softly.

"Was my human life not worth saving?" Kenshin searched her face. "Is this not the same as you have done with me, Tomoe? With them?"

"Have I such a foolhardy spawn?" The Mother pulled away from him, gliding across the golden path her eyes paved in the darkness. "I believe you only prolonged her death."

"You allowed my son to live," Kenshin pleaded. "Can you not do the same for her?"

"I allowed you to continue your existence," Tomoe mused. "I allowed your son. He was not born from the venom, though the child is no less a disobedience." The Mother returned to Kenshin, kneeling in front of him. She brushed over his face with her hand, mimicking the gesture she expressed with the three standing silently, watching. "Go. Go see to your creation. I have always been lenient for you," she latched her claws into his face, digging into his cheek to force him to look in her brilliantly shining eyes, "but do not cross me again. My love for you will not change, but jealousy will easily overcome your brothers and sister. They will have their way with you, as they have tonight. However, have they the chance again, I will not be there to oversee them."

The Mother picked Kenshin by the jaw, lifting him to his feet as bones protested the treatment. She threw him like nothing but a doll. Megumi rushed forward to meet him as he fell, but, quicker, the Mother stopped her, hissing horribly. The air chilled as the sound rolled from Tomoe's mouth, her fangs hanging pure white and sharp. Tomoe tossed Megumi aside, following the falling Shadow to grip the woman by the neck with those milk white fangs. The pain rose as a thriving phantom in the air through Megumi's scream as the Mother's bottom jaw furiously pushed against the skin, pulling warm blood into her mouth.

Hiko stumbled back quickly to draw from the feeling that was not his own. A low growl rumbled from Aoshi's chest. He glanced over his shoulder toward where the large door loomed. Kenshin was half-staggering, half-crawling to reach it. Aoshi stepped forward, his growl escalading into a challenging hiss, but Tomoe was there, eyes burning through him as blood dripped from her fangs, splattering on her cream colored, wide-sleeved shirt.

Once the door was opened and Kenshin spilled out into the hall, the rising wail from the room hauntingly chased him, brushing his cold skin in a shiver. He snapped his wings, leaping up to skim the ceiling as he flew.

"_Lenient,"_ Tomoe's voice flowed like icy water through Kenshin's mind, pouring over the rest of him with a shuddering chill. "_Perhaps too lenient."_

* * *

Kenshin could smell the blood long before he reached the door. The wood jumped from the wall to meet him when he alighted just outside the room. A blur of black and soft red came forward directly after. Kenshin caught the feeble attempt, ignoring the door completely as it bounced off him harmlessly, and tossed the flailing body back into the room, an angry hiss was left behind for him. He strode through the open entryway, eyes roving over the complete mess scattered across the room.

The scoundrel of a human Kenshin had found and left for her was the mess. Blood—the reason the scent was so strong—was splashed across each wall. Prints of a hand walked through the splatter, smeared the red further. Litters of shredded ribbons of flesh and snapped bones were strewn about as a child would with its toys once finished playing.

He nearly chuckled, had she not fallen from the ceiling. Kenshin dove, rolling to face her and the dainty snarl flashing newly found fangs. The particular pale golden glow of her eyes baffled him. Despite the display of her handiwork, her hands and face were spotless; she must have licked them clean, but the darker stains on the light red shirt that perfectly resembled the one Kenshin had previously been wearing—except the one she wore hung nearly to her knees—presented her prior game.

Kenshin never truly knew what she needed once the venom took its full effect; he had only guessed the hunger would be the first driving instinct that she would follow. That, at least, seemed to be true. This—her eyes and actions—he did not expect. His eyebrow slowly rose.

She was pressed against the wall—disregarding him since he had not moved after springing from his rolling escape—flicking her tongue to catch the liquid clinging to the stone. A soft mewl rose from her throat, a sound that no human could have ever made.

Kenshin did chuckle, calling her wild, hungry gaze to him. "You have never played with your food before, little one."

Kaoru hissed at him, running her tongue against the wall feverishly.

He chuckled again. "Kaoru,"

She whirled around in a half-crouch, her sapphire eyes dancing with the faded amber color. Kaoru growled, a vicious hiss spilling from behind her milky fangs. Her eyes grew wide when he echoed her, deeper and just as savage.

Kenshin held his hand out to her. "Come, little one. I believe I have what it is you seek. Come."

Kaoru crouched completely, watching him closely with suspicious eyes. Slowly, she began to crawl towards him, new muscles aiding her refined movements. The shirt, with the split that ran down the collar, revealed her. Kenshin could see down to the muscles of her smooth stomach ripple as she stalked forward. His own eyes bled amber.

She reached him, looking up from the floor. Her hands fisted in the thick fabric of his pants at his thighs, brushing other places that brought a hiss from between his clenched teeth that sounded nothing like Shadow and everything about being male. She used the leverage to haul herself up, mewling as she climbed. As she grasped his arm in an impossibly strong grip, she snarled. Pressed to his side, Kaoru's growl rumbled through him, distracting him as she ferociously bit him.

Kenshin swallowed the bellow boiling in his stomach and forcibly relaxed his arm to allow easier access to his vein. Once the muscles eased, her fangs sank fully into his flesh, drawing his blood into her mouth eagerly.

There was light touch like a feather against skin that passed over his mind. Much power lay behind that slight feeling; this was merely skimming the surface of something much deeper. It was not the paralyzing cold rush of ice that washed through his mind at the mental touch of Tomoe, but a comfortably warm wind, underlying with a core of simmering sizzling heat, ready to be unleashed. He started, almost wrenching her lips from his flesh: the contact where this heat poured from.

He let her feed until he began to feel the blood loss. When Kaoru refused to release him, clutching his wrist to her lips and sucking quicker, Kenshin fisted his hand in her hair and pulled. Skin ripped, caught in her fangs, as he flung her away from him, blood chasing after her from the fresh wound. He sat heavily on the stained floor cushion, slowly drawing his wings within.

Kaoru did not raise from her side, lying in the middle of the floor, the drying pool of blood beside her. Kenshin lay down as well to recuperate.

* * *

He never slept. He was not sleeping then, yet he dreamed. If he could remember dreams. There were many things he thought to have long forgotten or vanished. Few have proven wrong, but there were exceptions to what he had long since lost.

Kenshin was standing in the midst of what seemed to be a village; it was much too blurred to tell. The scene slowly changed, the brown wooden huts rippling away into tall trees. The trees began to push apart, spreading a wide plain that stretched farther than eyes could see. Slowly, a blinding light passed over him, and he quickly shied from it. When he looked again, the bulging world of grass was burning, consumed by swirling fire, and where the flames did not touch, the grass was stained a deep red that glowed.

His eyes opened to a grey stone room before he could see more.

Kenshin stood. The blood smeared across his body had not completely dried yet, but he was fully revived. His abilities were always much stronger after a taste of the Mother. He peered down at the prone form of Kaoru, still not woken from the induced slumber. Lifting her in his arms, Kenshin carried her out into the darken hall, and to another room clean of blood and strewn human tissues. Kenshin placed her across a cushion floor mat, black with the scenery of a blue-stitched outline of a lake and dark green trees standing along the shore.

It was quicker than he ever would have imagined before: the way Kaoru moved when her blue, blue eyes suddenly opened. It was the reason why he was not prepared. He had to chuckle—at himself, at her wild-eyed stare from across the room—as a clean cut split the skin above his brow. Fresh blood swelled from the wound, stretching down over his eye. His blood dripped from the tips of three flexing fingers of her hand.

Kaoru slowly brought her redden hand over her heart. "Kenshin?"

"This is what I have done," he said, standing as a liquid would stand had it the ability to. With his hand he waved toward her, taking her whole body in the sweep.

Her chest expanded quickly, taking the breath she had not breathed since before she woke. "I see," Kaoru nodded after a time of gathering her swirling thoughts.

"You nearly died, little one," Kenshin said softly.

She nodded again, slowly gazing about the room. "I remember."

Kenshin's brow furrowed as he gazed with one eye; the other closed from the small flow of blood. "Is that all you have to say?"

Kaoru snapped her attention back to him. "Forgive me if I find this unsettling for the moment."

His face softened. Her eyes wandered to the blood running down his face, over his lips.

"May I attempt something?"

"I am not breakable, it would seem," Kaoru replied. "Not anymore."

Kaoru met him. She frowned from the odd look of the grey-walled room and the man in front of her, shaded somewhat blue in, she noticed, the absence of light.

"This is very peculiar…" Kaoru mused.

"Peculiarities, at least at first, can be interesting to deal with," Kenshin stated with a slight nod.

Kaoru pointedly peered at him. "I do not find much wrong with it."

"Not wrong. Just interesting," he said, inclining his head in agreement.

"What was this?" she asked, brushing her fingertips over the drying blood crusting to his skin.

Kenshin held her wrist; the touch was lighter than a feather. He pulled her prying fingers away, tracing the lines of her palm with his lips. She barely felt his contact; it might as well have been a playful kiss by the wind.

"It is nothing to worry over," he said.

Kaoru reached her free palm above his brow, wiping the blood. She brought her decorated hand to her mouth, slowly flicking her tongue to lap the deep red from her skin. Her eyes turned to him, peering brightly through dark lashes.

"Very peculiar," she repeated as she licked the remaining blood from her palm.

Kenshin's growl vibrated through the air, following her as she began to back away. When he stretched his hand to brush her face, Kaoru scooted from him. A delectable purr poured like honey from her throat as she smiled.

Kenshin's growl ceased as he spoke. "You never were one to play."

Kaoru's smile spread, lighting her face. "I have never been able to."

His eyebrows rose slightly, and his feet shifted. Kaoru's gaze darted towards the floor under him, and he moved. He embraced empty air where Kaoru had stood. Her laughter rolled through the room, filling every crevice with its sweeter melody. Kenshin peered around him, drawn by the sound but could not see her.

"You will regret this," he said playfully, his voice dipping huskily. Kenshin smiled. He could smell her now, sharp and potent. Her growing need permeated the air. Kenshin chuckled.

"Make fun, will you?" her voice purred by his ear. Kenshin turned, expecting the woman to have gone, not for her to grasp his face between her hands and heatedly press her lips on his. Briefly stunned, Kenshin fought for control, but she would have none of it. Kaoru pressed her fangs lightly into his lip, drawing a small tang of blood into the kiss.

Kenshin clasped her wrists, poised to shift her hands behind her, as he had done many times before, but she easily slipped free. Instead, Kaoru mocked what he would have done, wrapping her arms around his waist and holding his wrists behind him. Kenshin shuddered against Kaoru's tongue as she slowly cleaned blood from his chest, raking fangs over the clean, damp skin.

Kaoru grinned when she felt him try to free his clenched hands, but he was not tugging so hard. It was very easy to keep him locked in place.

"You will have to try better than that," Kaoru spoke, her lips brushing over his flesh. She looked at his face, a bit startled to see his avid eyes fading from bright but deep amber. Kaoru ran her hands up his arms to his shoulders, using them to raise herself on her toes. She kissed above his brow at the small wounds from her nails, as he bowed his head, breathing against her collarbone and placing heated kisses across her exposed skin.

With bloodied lips, Kaoru strangled a gasp when Kenshin sank his fangs into the quickening pulse—although still much slower than any normal heartbeat, a human heartbeat—at her nape. The light gold film clouded her irises as he drank from her, slowly dancing his mouth against her skin, pressing her blood in warm rushes over his tongue. Kenshin felt it: the light brush in his mind roared into a searing hurricane.

The sensation swept through her as well, a blistering heat. As she felt herself open completely to him, he opened himself to her. Something seeped from her pores, a wild rush of unnatural power, and thundered over Kenshin. Kaoru vaguely recalled such an occurrence, but the thoughts in her mind became jumbled. Which were her words, and which were his was indistinguishable. The unexplainable melding of flames much to hot for a physical touch intertwined, and just as quickly separated into two beings instead of one.

Kenshin pulled free from her, holding her up where her legs' support had suddenly disappeared. He lowered her to the same decorated cushion, and followed down beside her. Absently, her hand found his chest and began tracing circles. She looked at him.

"I may sound like a silly little girl by asking the same question again, but what was that?"

"It was a bond," Kenshin explained after a moment when his smile disappeared. "It was a similar experience I had when Tomoe changed me, but also very, very different." He gazed heavily into her eyes.

"Tomoe?"

"The Mother," he said reluctantly. "It was a bonding of the mind," he continued to her slightly confused expression. "There will be moments where a thought will flow from my mind into your own when I wish it. You will also be able to do the same."

"Is that all? There seemed to be all too much…" she waved her other hand, not able to think of a proper word, "It was much too much to have only been for that one thing."

"No," he said slowly. "You are correct, but I have never been able to explore any other such ability a bonding creates. I do not know what else there is."

"We will have to ask, then," Kaoru stated.

"Perhaps."

Kaoru's hand wandered from his chest to his shoulders, flicking the ribbons of cloth clinging to him away.

"You are troubled," she said softly, tilting her head.

Impassive eyes trailed from the room to her face.

She shook her head. "You may have hid from me before, but I can see now. I can see very clearly that there is something worth your while. Is it anything about my dreams?" Kaoru sat up quickly, looking down at him. Kenshin's loose hair splayed about the black cushion in a flame halo. She reached down, propping herself on one arm, and stroked his face, brushing untamed strands from his face.

"It was troubling," he admitted.

She waited.

He sighed. "They are nothing to worry over."

"They? More than one?"

"Yes," Kenshin took her hand, kissing her wrist and fingers and palm.

Kaoru bit back her sudden irritation, as she barely could feel a thing. His habits of holding back when she was human had reached so far as to interfere with casual touching. It must have been more difficult than he expressed.

She gripped his arm none too softly, trying to show him. "Kenshin, what are you doing?"

Puzzled, he gazed into her sparkling eyes. "What do you mean?"

She lowered her face to his, a glint of fangs from her parted lips. Again, with a strange aggression that stunned him into a stupefied submission, she tangled her fingers in his flame red hair, pulling the kiss deeper as she purred slowly into his mouth, rising to straddle his waist without breaking from her hold on his lips. Kenshin could feel her smile.

With a deep, rattling growl that rolled over and through her more than it ever had, leaving her to gasp in surprise, Kenshin flipped them over. His hair spilled into her face, tickling her cheeks with silken ends. Kaoru pressed her thigh against his side, rubbing as he peered down, propping himself with either hand on each side of her head. There was a scent that filled the air; it excited her as she took a deep breath, her eyes dilating.

Kenshin raised his hand, her hair spilling from his palm. He brought his hand to his face, taking a soft breath, breathing in the scent of jasmine. Chuckling, he lowered to his elbows, shifting so one knee rested between her legs.

"It is need," he said heatedly. "Want. You can smell it."

A lighter, feminine growl boiled from her chest as he dipped to her nape, caressing with his lips, as well as with hands down her sides to her thighs. A wave of frustration washed over her at the extremity that his touch was so careful, so light. Kaoru growled darkly, fisting her hand in his hair and jerking his head to look her in the eye. Kenshin snarled viscously, but she held her own, staring into his hard steel gaze. He snapped his jaws, fangs clacking as they slid from behind his lips.

Kaoru hissed, lifting her head to swiftly snap at his face, but brushed only soft lips over his skin, kissing his cheeks and nose, flicking out her tongue over the closed eyelid that had blood clinging to the lashes. She tugged his hair again, lighter, so his snarl was not as fierce.

"I will not break," she whispered, spicing her words with thick annoyance and heat. She smiled, lowering her risen shoulders as Kenshin's eyes began to bleed amber, strikes like lightning sparking across the vast amethyst. Kaoru traced her fingers over his chest, lowering her gaze to watch the invisible patterns, and then looked up through her lashes into brilliant molten orbs of the silly man who only now had the revelation. A slow, seducing smile spread across her face.

Kenshin pressed his knee to her, and a welcoming gasp parted her lips for him to easily claim. Kenshin delved his tongue into her mouth, forgetting his long-held reserve that he built when with her over the years. To really, truly feel the shudder of her as his hands passed over skin, to push so close against her, to feverishly press into her mouth without reserve was nearly overwhelming.

Her arms locked around his neck, pulling him closer until his chest pressed against her. The only thing keeping from feeling his skin on hers was the fabric of the shirt. That brief passing of the thought, and Kenshin began to tear at the frail material; it fell by his clawed hands, those claws raking lightly over her breast. Her moaning purr as he caressed rippled into his mouth. A hissing breath passed from between her teeth as Kenshin's lips traveled across her jaw and lower, clasping her breast and sucking.

Hands kneaded the muscles if his back, shoulders, and chest, fingers splayed to stretch across his skin. Kaoru passed the top of the rough fabric of his pants and ran her fingers under the waistband clinging to his sides. It was his turn to rumble a pleased growl, rising swiftly to her nape as his hand traveled down to mirror the movements she passed over him.

As his other hand rose to brush against her face as he kissed her fiercely, it froze on her upper arm, gripping with a force that would have crushed her had she still been human. Quickly, Kaoru cupped his face with her hands, peering into his passive eyes.

"Kenshin? Kenshin, what is it?"

Kenshin's eyes focused as the destroying rush of cold crashed through his mind with enough force to spill over into hers. Kaoru gasped, jerking back. Kenshin rose, bringing her up to sit cradled against him between his legs. He wrapped around her possessively, passing his hand over her hair, and then laid her head to his chest. The frozen chill had faded to a dull ache, throbbing in his mind, as well as Kaoru's. Forcefully, Kenshin pressed his own self through Kaoru, flowing like warm honey to break the stronger concentration of cold, or at least subdue it. In response, Tomoe lashed out at him angrily, pressing firmly against his mind enough for him to loose a cry, and for Kaoru to scream.

"_Come to me,_" Tomoe commanded, jerking her icy touch from them both.

Shaken, Kaoru leaned heavily against him, breathing steadily in distress. Kenshin was motionless, only moving to place soft kisses on her temple and hair.

"I am sorry," he said softly.

"What…what _was_ that?" Kaoru demanded.

"That was my bond to the Mother. She spoke with us."

"She did not speak!" she argued. "That was…madness!"

Kenshin began to shush her quietly.

"Do not tell me to be quiet, Kenshin! What gave her the right to press upon me…us like that?!"

Kenshin shrugged, standing to his feet seeing as Kaoru was quite alright. "She is the Mother."

"What does that have anything to do with this?"

"Everything."

Kaoru closed her mouth from what she was going to continue from the solemn tone in which Kenshin spoke. He turned from her, leaving the room. She sat back on her heels, covering herself with her arms before standing, considering following him. As she was sitting, he returned, fresh clothing folded neatly across his arm. Once she was dressed, the dark blue made the perfect contrast with her eyes and pale skin. The swirls of a purple nearly the color of Kenshin's eyes danced over the cloth in intricate designs. It was slightly large, the sleeves hanging past her fingertips and reaching nearly as low as the red shirt before, but it was comfortable enough, as she stated while rubbing her hand down the silken cloth of the black pants.

"Good," Kenshin nodded. "Comfort should be in order."

He took her into the hall. It was slightly darker than the unlit room but there was not any need for her to cling to him anymore. Kaoru ignored the edge of the platform, but the scent of death was stronger now. It was streaming from the floor below.

"Kenshin, our bond will not be so…"

"No," he said quickly, "It most certainly will not be like that."

They passed an open doorway, the light spilling into the dim hall long before they reached it. Kaoru stopped, searching quietly into the bloodstained room. Kenshin appeared besides her, standing at her shoulder.

"I did this," It was not a question.

He nodded, watching her face. There was an emptiness beginning at the edges of her eyes, an empty that had infected his own gaze for an especially long time.

"Come," he gently steered her away from the bloody room, her head turning against them to see. "We cannot keep her waiting long."

* * *

Kaoru was greeted by Sanosuke, waiting against a wall flowing from a pair of great wooden doors. Kenshin was ignored.

"I recognize that," he drawled easily, grazing his eyes over the shirt Kaoru was wearing. A light behind his eyes flashed, and Kenshin snarled.

Sano barked a laughed. "Come with me," he motioned to Kaoru. "I'm supposed to take you inside." This he spoke directly to Kenshin, the shine behind his brown eyes growing to the point that they seemed to reach beyond his face, into the darkness. Energy rippled from him, brushing over her like a warm stream, pleasant but strong enough to sweep legs if enough force was gathered. Behind her, Kenshin became extremely still except for his warm trickle of aura that was contained, locked away with nothing but steam building for a release. However, Kenshin nodded curtly, glancing at her before backing away. That aura, his aura, wrapped around her, coiled to her like a soft breeze, then reluctantly died away.

Sano drew a deep breath when Kaoru passed by him after he tugged the door open effortlessly. He flicked a very amused gaze toward Kenshin. The door slammed shut. Kaoru quickly realized she was very alone. Sano was nowhere to be seen. The silence was absolute, and her unnecessary breathing began. Though changed into something not quite Shadow, the humanity she left behind was still clinging desperately as her chest tightened with fear. She smelled her own terror, and it was a horrible scent, musky and sickly, like it was not meant to permeate from such a body as hers now.

Kaoru timidly moved forward, her foot descending slowly, testing to see if there was solid ground. There was; her foot first brushed the cold floor, and then firmly pressed to it in a step. Her exhale of relief became a scream of fright.

The Mother stood before her. There had been no materialization from the shadows; she was merely suddenly present. Kaoru stumbled; her shriek cut short buy the silencing cold wind that painfully triggered her mouth to involuntarily close. Tomoe's feathers rustled, the very natural sound seeming to speak her irritation in place of her expressionless face.

"Stand, child," she commanded. Kaoru scrambled as best she could with uncooperative legs without taking her wide eyes off the Mother.

Her bland gaze was the most scalding look Kaoru had ever received. She felt comprehension for what Kenshin explained beforehand: this woman was everything and had everything to do with each and every one of them, now including herself. Her ties to Kenshin integrated herself into the firm grip of the Mother. The Shadow's respect for her was great, but Kaoru's was greater. She was nothing in comparison, less than those directly under the Mother's wings. There was no place for her; she was left out to catch what shade she could from Tomoe. Kaoru dropped to the ground on both knees, her head bowed. A curtain of raven black hair shrouded her face; her fingers dug into the material bunched on top of her thighs.

"I can imagine Kenshin has not told you much," the Mother began. "That was not an invitation to speak," Tomoe said softy, but Kaoru visibly flinched, closing her mouth. She felt the Mother stalking around her, slicing her apart with her gaze, looking deep within where no other had seen, where no one should have been able to see. Kaoru began to shiver when Tomoe caressed her face, tilting her chin up.

"There is much fear in you. Much fear of me." Tomoe's face broke into a deaden smile. The Mother ran her fingers over Kaoru's brow. Bright, wide sapphires stared down at the material of Tomoe's clothing: a deep cream but stitched with dark red and purple around the edges. Tomoe had lifted Kaoru's head, but she did not look the woman in the eye; she dare not. Tomoe's breath puffed over Kaoru's hair. "You may ask me whatever question you wish. I will answer."

Kaoru looked at her, but tore her gaze away. "What am I?"

The Mother stood briskly, a wash of ice piercing Kaoru's mind sharply. It was gone before Kaoru could utter a single noise.

"You are the first of a breed in existence. There are no others of your kind." Tomoe turned to face Kaoru, who had looked up in surprise. "My Shadow were not allowed to spawn from themselves. It would have been a more tainted creature, such as you." She rotated her head to peer through the darkness. Tomoe held her hand out, and something detached from the shadows. Aoshi reached her first, and Tomoe fisted her hand in his black shirt, tugging him downward like she batted a fly from the air. Megumi and Hiko spilled around her, shifting like the shadow that was their name, fluid and elegant. They did not look at Aoshi nor help him from the floor.

"They are so wonderful," Tomoe said, running hooked fingers over Hiko's face, trailing small impressions. "Yet so unworthy, ruined, watered down like worthless half-bloods." Her fingers sprouted claws that collected bits of Hiko's flesh under them as they traveled his other cheek. Tomoe turned to Kaoru. "You are so much less than even they," she said like she would to a small child who would not understand.

Kaoru cringed when the Mother's bloodied claw stoked her face. Tomoe's haunted smile cross her features. "Have you another question, child?"

Kaoru sputtered, but far before words touched her lips. Her mind was in a muddle; she could not remember how to speak.

"Enishi," she finally blurted. The Shadow stiffened, though the change was not physical in the least. Kaoru felt their discomfort and annoyance. "I have seen him before. His eyes, they are the color of blood. Have mine changed as well?" Kaoru dreaded an affirmation, but Tomoe chuckled and the ice in the lovely rolling sound burned.

"Enishi's eyes have changed to what confirmed his own self. You, child, still retain the color with which you were born, as it was with all of my spawn."

Confused, Kaoru asked. "They had changed. I saw them before he fell, and they were very different from what they are now. Why are his eyes changed, and not my own?"

Tomoe drew away from them before speaking. "The eyes are the solitary window where the soul is exposed for all to see. Your eyes are the beautifully decorated doors to your soul, clear and clean as crisp water untouched by the things of the world." Tomoe laughed once more, the sound grating against Kaoru's skin. "While you may believe you have been soiled by all that which you have seen, by what you have become, your soul remains unchanged. Enishi's soul, even before his change to Shadow, was always stained, much like Kenshin's was. However, Kenshin wished to renounce that dark part of him, though that of his soul gives him great power, power more superior than it was when he was human. Enishi never wanted to turn from his ways, and his soul was slowly soaked with the blood he collected upon himself gleefully. Now, the doors to his soul have been bled upon and show what all lies within. It is this that he has passed to his kind: life drenched in blood."

"What of my son? He is not like Enishi's creatures?"

Tomoe snorted delicately. "He is an odd creature, half Shadow and half human. He is, however, no concern of mine," she paused abruptly. The Mother's eyes began to seep with light until they shone bright against the dark. "He is a wonder to me."

Kaoru frowned as Tomoe's wings seemed to sag slightly like shoulders would when the body and mind felt defeat and utter loss.

Unfocused eyes turned to Kaoru. "He is a wondrous creature, and I allowed him to live. It was I who also granted your life, at the pleading of your lover. I had the impression to end your existence, but decided otherwise." Tomoe tilted her head slightly to the side, her eyes glowing brightly, as if waiting for Kaoru to lavish her with gratitude. Kaoru did not; she did not move.

"I believe that is all," Tomoe breathed like a woman after a long hard day working the fields, a slow, lasting exhale of satisfaction carrying bits of fatigue.

Kaoru looked up then, confusion in her eyes as the Mother began to mold into the darkness that snaked its arms around her.

"There are no more questions, Kaoru," the Mother said plainly. "There is only action left to decide."

The Mother was gone, vanished, leaving the Shadow behind. From the darkness, Sano padded across the floor toward Kaoru. The wolf-creature's tail brushed over Megumi's rear, then swished to the side and returned with a slap. Megumi hissed as the wolf scurried away from her with his back bunched playfully. A wolf smile opened his muzzle, and a long tongue flopped from his jaws. Sano sat on his haunches facing Kaoru. The animal towered over her kneeling form, nearly three human heads taller. He was waiting, but kept an eye out behind him where the Shadow had been standing moments ago. The wolf snorted, reaching around to nibble an itch on its side.

Kaoru wobbled to her feet, grasping the fur the wolf offered as help. There was a hint of intelligence in those animal eyes that no true animal could have possibly had when Kaoru walked along beside him and really looked. The wolf growled at her nearness without curling his lips. Kaoru slowly backed until the growl ceased. Sanosuke or not, he was still some form of animal. Kaoru knew not to push, even humans with no connection to a beautiful animalistic form would bare teeth, growl, and rip at throats when provoked enough, though the actions be less primitive in a manner of speaking.

The wolf's nose quivered, the deep testing intakes of breath very loud. His hackles rose in a ripple from his shoulders nearly all the way down his spine. Tsubame skid—an action Kaoru never imagined the woman to do—in front of them to halt.

She glared at Sano. "Kaoru, Kenshin wants to speak with you. Quickly now."

The woman dashed across the floor in a blur with Sano bounding after her, a yelp that sounded like pure joy leaping from him. Stunned, Kaoru stood until Sanosuke returned, growling high in his chest. It was more of a question or plea than a threat. She followed; timid at first, wondering if they meant to leave her so far behind, but quickly remembered. She pressed harder, pushing from the floor but did not gain any ground. Frustrated, the light sound of a familiar chuckle fluttered through her mind, brushing the faint feeling of calm over her.

Like a dream, unclear and distant, Kenshin's voice spoke. "_It is not external strength, little one_._ Not entirely._"

There was the sensation of a hand passing over her, through her, a soft caress that seemed to guide her towards something locked away. At first, she believed this to only be an imaginative figment, just a fleeting thought of some unexplainable something or another; she hadn't the slightest clue. But the tug was very real, and she flew across the floor, tripping in her sudden shock. Kenshin's chuckle was louder but fading quickly as she lay on the floor. Like a retreating wave, the warmth pulled from her mind, baring her irritation again. She arrived in the doorway with a frown to Kenshin's small smile.

"We will work at it," he said, standing to take her in his arms. She sighed heavily. "Did everything go well?"

Kaoru sighed again. "It is hard to say. I feel less like she helped me than tried her very best to intimidate and terrorize me."

Kenshin brushed his lips over her temple. "Well, there is a problem that I think you can solve," he said, turning and snaking his arm around her waist, waving with his other toward a pair of deep amethyst eyes.

"Kenji," she smiled, stepping from Kenshin.

"Mother," he nearly sobbed, rushing into her open arms.

Kaoru shushed him softly, running her hand down his hair. "It is alright," she repeated for him.

"Mother, what happened?"

Kaoru looked up into Kenshin's bland face. He met her gaze.

"I nearly died," she answered.

Kenji shook his head. "No, what happened to you? You're not warm anymore, mother. You are cold." Kenji took her hand, lifting it to his eyes and examined her fingers. He looked up.

Kaoru smiled softly, kneeling, threading her fingers through his smaller ones and kissed his knuckles. "Your father did what he thought was best. He did not want me to leave him. You did not want me to leave, right?"

Kenji nodded, wrapping his arms around her neck, turning angry, tear-glittered eyes to Kenshin standing behind his mother. Kenshin's flashing amber eyes frowned at the boy, deepening the scowl on Kenji's face.

"Kenji," Kaoru said, leading the boy back by the shoulders until she could see his tearful face. She smiled, standing after kissing his forehead. "Is he going to be ok?" Kaoru asked when the boy left.

"He will be fine. Just let him except the change in his own time. Regardless that you are not mortal, the boy still loves you."

Kaoru smirked, planting a quick kiss on Kenshin's lips. "Your son loves you as well."

Kenshin wrapped his strong arms around her, drawing her to nestle perfectly to his chest. He rested his cheek on her temple, taking a deep breath.

"You do know," she said matter-of-factly after a time, "I have never seen the outside after dark."

Kenshin smiled. "So you have not," he agreed. "The moon should be nearly full tonight."

Strangely, the hall seemed to drown in the sounds of angry growls and snaps and yelps. Kenshin's arm around Kaoru's waist, though always as rock, grew extremely tense.

"I wonder what is wrong," she looked up at his face, his eyes filled with the frown he was not allowing to express.

"The moon surely is nearly full," Kenshin said thoughtfully. "The wolves are tied with the moon's faces. They are more animal than man the times closest to the full moon. It does not hinder them to only in the form of the animal either."

"There are only three of them, four including little Shinya, but he cannot make such noises yet. They are everywhere."

"The hall is the perfect place to have sounds repeat themselves and grow. It is a perfect use for confusion." Kenshin glanced to his side, stepping into Kaoru as a rush of snarling wind ran by. Kaoru felt his whole body tense. "Let us just go outside."

Instead of taking the ground exit—Kenshin passed it by, and Kaoru did not say a word about it—he took them to a flight of stairs, tall and dangerously steep. The edges were crumbling; a step could collapse the broken stone. Kaoru still did not fully trust her newly reformed and strengthened body, and gripped Kenshin's arm.

Kaoru's head bumped the ceiling when she did not stop with Kenshin. He pressed the stone with his palm, pushing upward and the stone complained free, the dazzle of stars winking in the clear sky overhead. Kaoru followed behind Kenshin onto what was the second recessing platform that made the roofing. A glance behind at the stone told her the rock was much taller than her width.

She circled, staring out at first across the black shapes of the trees. She gazed at the moon in a silent wonder, watching the stars dance in the midnight blue sky. It had been three years of forever since any type of sky other than one smothered in clouds was opened to her. Even then, she could see clouds off in the distance. Thick but serene things. They are what came from the north. Their appearance was always misleading. A roll of thunder whispered behind her, from the east, the way they had come. Hovering just inside the ability to be heard was the rain-filled caldron, black and angry. Kenshin was faced that direction, watching the skies. The chilled moonlight cast a thin, silver blanket across him, shading his hair, further depressing the shadows spotting his face that were cast from the burning light from his dark amber eyes.

Puzzled, Kaoru touched his arm. His taunt muscles were stone, at their strongest when even fangs could not penetrate through. A howl rose from the hole in the roof, curling through the air around them like something alive, and infuriated. When Kaoru took a breath, the air reeked of death. Individuals silently rose from the breach in the roof, filing toward them.

"Kaoru," Kenshin said, drawing her away from the view. "I never intended you learn how to use your abilities in this way."

She nodded, speechless still as her gaze raked across the red-speckled landscape.

Hundreds of blood-red eyes crawled their way across the open field, crawling across the dark emerald grasses. Hundreds more flowed from the trees. Lanterns of red danced across the open land, drowning in the sea of it. Their feet were silent, but their squabbles were not. As they advanced, many broken into fights, tearing, biting, shredding each other to ribbons and feasting upon the blood garnished ground, snapping mouths shut around mouthfuls of dirt from which to suck the sweet nectar. They crawled over one another, building small mounds of writhing flesh like a vicious swarm of angry ants, tossed each other aside, milled like herds of frantic animals. They hissed like mad, scraping the sound across their throats, rattling as the noise sprang from between their gaping, sometimes torn lips.

"By the Mother's Fang," Aoshi said softly.

"What are those?" Megumi asked.

"Vampire," Kenshin responded coolly. "Spawn of Enishi."

"He has been very busy," she commented snidely.

"If he has been gathering this for these last ten years, how did he keep them all from slaughtering each other?" Hiko scoffed. "They are nothing but animals."

"All these lives he has taken," Kaoru whispered. Each Shadow turned to her. She stepped near to the edge of the roof, holding a hand over her heart. "Do you see how many lives he has taken?"

"Why did you not kill him when you had the chance ten years ago?" Megumi inquired, directing the gazes back to Kenshin. A deadly frown cast over the lot of them, each staring to the shortest figure of them.

Kenshin's shoulders rolled in a tight shrug. "I had no reason to."

"This is not reason enough?"

Kenshin's eyes flicked to her face. "Not at that particular time."

"If there was no true reason at the times when the opportunity presented itself, then there was nothing he could have done. There was nothing any of us could have done." Aoshi indicated.

Megumi scowled. "We have reason now."

"We have more than enough to take action now," Kenshin growled.

"Fuck." Yahiko muttered with his wild hair the only thing sticking from the hole behind them all. "I thought the smell inside was bad enough." He lifted Tsubame up enough for her to sit on the lip of the hole, her feet dangling at his chest. She kicked him swiftly but lightly. Absently, after he and his mate stood alongside the group, he rubbed the spot where she had landed her foot. "Well, I would repeat myself, but I think I should not."

"What are we going to do about this?" Tsubame asked.

The mass of bodies had halted, fights for the front row breaking out in madness. Blood rained across the front line.

"There is only one thing we can do," Yahiko answered quickly. "We kill them. All of them."

Aoshi nodded, but Kenshin spoke. "Agreed."

"We may have a better situation than we realize," Hiko chimed smoothly. "A mass gathering of this number can only mean that Enishi himself is somewhere close. We can finally be answered the one question: should the Mother parish, then will we, as her spawn, also?"

"Surely, such a powerful flaw would also be the weak link holding their own kind together, even for one cast out," Aoshi continued. "If Enishi dies here, now, then he may possibly take his whole breed with him."

"And then we would finally know if the complete destruction of the vampire by Enishi's death does work, that we would also surely die alongside the Mother." Hiko finished.

"There is fault in your words," Kenshin crossed his arms. "They are indeed a weaker breed than even Kaoru. That could be only their weakness. It may not be strong enough to reach us of a higher power."

"That is true also," Aoshi agreed. "But this at least could give us a bit more to think with in order to find a better and more positive answer."

"In either case," Megumi interrupted impatiently, "Enishi has to die. Why not simply get it over with now, no matter what outcome."

"She is right," Kaoru said, facing the Shadow. "If the vampires die with Enishi, so be it. If they do not, remember then they will be without a leader to rule them. It will be longer to finish, but they will die easier without him."

"So," Megumi snapped. "Let us quit speaking our thoughts, and finish this as quickly as possible."

"Why have they not tried to overrun the castle yet?" Yahiko wondered, frowning out into the hissing masses. "It looks as if something is keeping them from crossing some unseen line."

"We cannot afford to wait long enough to find out what they are doing or why," Kaoru demanded. "We must attack them now."

Without so much as a second thought, the Shadow each leapt into the sky. Wings burst from their backs, carrying them up on beginning winds of the far-off storms. Yahiko's sudden howl from a wolf's throat startled Kaoru. Sanosuke lunged from under their feet through the opening, passing Kaoru without a glance, and, with Yahiko's black form joining the gracefully taken strides, jumped from the roof, their claws scrapping against the stone. Wicked marks and scattered chips of stone were left behind.

Kaoru yelped in shock and fear, watching each furred creature falling from the extraordinary dangerous height.

"Do not worry for them," Tsubame said with a smile as she placed Yahiko's tossed clothing to the side. She quickly disappeared inside.

Below, Yahiko and Sanosuke had somehow turned in midair and latched themselves to the walls; they had not pushed themselves too far from the wall for the fall. Their claws screeched horribly as they slowed their decent only slightly until they were nearly close enough to the ground that a human would have considered it best not to jump from and pushed from the wall. Each thudded to the ground digging, claws flinging dirt and grass behind them as they ran. Sano's muzzle rose to the moon with a gleeful but skin-crawling howl. Yahiko's lips curled in what easily could have been a savage smile before those gleaming fangs found and dislodged the throat of a female vampire.

"Kaoru!" Tsubame's voice called from below.

Kaoru scurried to peer over the side. "Yes?"

"Are you joining the battle?"

Taken slightly aback, Kaoru stuttered for an answer. She looked out over the field, listened to the snarls of the wolves and the screams of the vampires. She glanced at the sky, and the lack of Shadow thereof. She only now noticed that they had not descended from their upward flight.

"I am not sure," she replied, still looking to the sky.

"Then you will stay behind and watch the children."

Kaoru had heard Tsubame give strong suggestions, but never a true command. There was no argument in her tone, and the pleasantries had all but disappeared.

"Of course."

"Good," Tsubame said. "They both are there at the bottom of the stairs. I instructed them to stay there, no matter what, unless you think that they would be safer deeper inside the castle."

"I understand."

Tsubame's form flew by, leaving a swiftly spoken, "Take care." It took Kaoru but a second to notice the woman's clothing was missing. She turned just as Tsubame followed suit of her pack mates. A third wolf bound across what was left of the open field to join her nearly overwhelmed men.

"Kenji! Shinya!" she called down to them.

"Mother," Kenji's voice rose. "What is going on?"

"Do not worry, son. Either of you. Just stay where you are. I will not let anything happen to you."

"I know." Was his answer. She sighed heavily, turning to the empty skies.

"Such a wondrous evening," the Mother's voice caused Kaoru to jump. The woman seemed not to notice the battle beginning below.

"It is," Kaoru agreed timidly.

Tomoe watched her briefly, casting a smile across her lips before her wings fluidly lifted her above Kaoru. Watching the woman, Kaoru wondered if the reason the night was said wonderful was not because of anything else but the bloodshed below.

Kaoru dare not drift too close to the edge, lest a wandering blood-red eye spot her, causing a swarm of vampires to converge on the roof, placing the boys in grave danger. The Mother she was not so worried for; the woman seemed very much capable of fending for herself.

Visions of flapping, night-black wings rose from the silver moon-shadows painted across the land, through the gaps in the early trees from the forest edge. Eyes aglow of snow-pale blue, sea green, earthly brown and black, and molten amber flashed, fleeing the darkness from stoic faces. A joyous yelp jumped from the mouth of a wolf as the Shadow swooped down.

Had the moon not been nearly full, not shining nearly its brightest in the night, they would have been seen as if in flight of some more magical form; the wings would have simply not been seen. But the rippling wings adorning their backs were darkly magical. The steady rhythm in which each set on each back was wholly different, yet the same in their magnificence and great span. Each to their own, they split from the ragged formation, taking to whichever way they may.

Kenshin dropped down beside Kaoru as the ground rumbled. "I do not want you to be forced into this," he said quickly. "You cannot simply understand everything you have on nothing but a whim without any aid. It would be dangerous and foolish to go blindly into battle. I do not want you to fight."

Kaoru immediately wanted to protest. "I know," she said instead. "Kenji and Shinya are below," she waved to the hidden stairwell, "I have to make sure nothing happens to them."

"Kenshin," she halted him. The ground shuddered. "Is Enishi truly out there?"

"I do not know," he said with his back to her. "But I hope that he is." His wings snapped, and the dark sky swallowed him.

"As do I," she said when he was gone.

Silently, the stars began to wink out. One by one, they fluttered, blinked, and then were extinguished from the black heavens. Softly, the clouds began to form: what blinded the stars. The near perfect temperature dropped drastically as the feel of rolling thunder growled.

To the eastern side of the castle, the soil began to slide, churned into swallowing mud latching hungrily to the feet and hands of a wave of vampires. The soil solidified once again after the surprised screams of the lost men and women faded. Hiko hovered above, his swirls of brown and black eyes searching for another closely knitted group. When one was found, he dove like a bird of prey, smashing the ground with his closed fists. Across the way, a column of dirt shot up high, tossing the people like bugs, and then collapse with them sprawled underneath.

While on the ground Hiko, like Aoshi, who was far from the element he controlled, made better use of the decorating claws and fangs. Around him, the earth swallowed vampires whole one by one, sometimes swirling together again too soon, leaving a screaming, hissing head to thrash or a whole limb to wave fruitlessly.

Yahiko, while padding across prostrate bodies with his tongue hanging from bloody jaws, passed such a spitting, shrieking head. With a growl and a snap, the man was silenced. Yahiko lifted his muzzle to the blackening sky, and let loose a hair-raising howl. It drawled almost lazily in a deep, resonating bass, spreading slowly then faster into the trees, where it seemed all of nature had been in silent fear. Two similar howls rose from the field. One was cut short in a painful growling yelp, but rose in time once again. From inside, down at the base of the steep stairs, Kaoru could hear a young, very human voice answer the call as well.

Lightning a blue-white color boldly putting to shame the brightest, hottest flame flashed, striking next to Aoshi dismembering the body of a thrashing male vampire nearly twice his size. The bolt did not faze him. One by one, the bolts touched the rolling, shifting earth, leaving behind charred remains of anything within its grasp. Thunder exploded, shocking the ranks of vampire into a frantic frenzy. Two wolves began to herd those in a panic, snapping at backs and faces—though many of those did not survive the prodding—running headlong into the crowds to force them in a one direction. They were run into the waiting arms of lightning.

Just before the vampires were forced under the cover of the trees, the hackles of the two wolves rippled down their backs, and they quickly turned away, angrily growling and snapping their jaws towards the sky. One pounced atop a bloody, limping female vampire and began ripping her apart at the waist with wild swings of its head. The vampire screamed, slashing her nails across the furred face of the wolf. The other animal viciously fought for its footing as four vampires converged upon it, tearing and biting and kicking.

The night sky then lit in flames. Kenshin was standing on the thick branch of a tree, one of the first that stood from the clutches of the forest behind it. He had watched as the wolves gathered and herded the vampires towards him, just far enough from those of his kind and far enough from the forest to let fly the fingers of golden lightning. Bolts after bolts struck the fleeing crowd, and the sky, for that quick moment, was day.

Kenshin looked out over the battlefield, surveying the complete destruction of the once magnificent field of emerald grasses. Now there was nothing but blood drenched soil. Enishi had not yet been found, but with the army of unintelligent vampire quickly dwindling in its numbers, Kenshin knew the vampire would show himself within a matter of time.

With the thought in mind, Kenshin swooped from the branches, flying low enough to catch unexpecting vampires by their last, gruesome surprise. He spiraled up into the sky, his wings folded against his back. Quickly, they snapped out to catch him on the breeze, and lighting flashed behind him, seemingly springing from the tips of his wings to lash at the ground far below.

Kaoru had been watching the battle unfold before her, the near constant flashes of lightning, the inability of anything but hand-to-hand combat for Aoshi and Megumi—he did not seem to mind, and Megumi was thoroughly enjoying herself—the constant shifting of the landscape. Each blow either took a vampire or rendered it nearly helpless enough not to worry about. Though, none of them acted as if they were worried at all. They were irritated. The irritation developed into anger, and now that anger morphed into the face of pure rage as they slaughtered.

The vampires started to climb the wall. It was not a pretty climb—a far-fetched way to depict something that was never such a thing. They could not scale the walls. Not even the Shadow had the ability to simply crawl a wall. The vampires smashed their fists, and sometimes fingers, into the rock to heft themselves up, their feet dangling limply or kicking to help propel them up the impossible climb.

Kaoru paced the edge, not knowing what to do. Before there was always Kenshin nearby, and before that she had always taken flight instead of fight. There was never anything she could possibly do in a situation such as this. Her chest shook with her unsteady intake of air, but her calm face told a lie. The vampires did not look as if they noticed her yet, and she would have rather liked it that way. They still had a ways to come before reaching her, but the dogged, or unresponsive, determination that pulled and pushed each of them upward without so much as a blink when the crunch of bones was so audible it nearly drained Kaoru's face to a sheet and turned her heels to the battle kept them coming still.

Kenshin had not noticed yet; he was much occupied with a large group of men and a few woman twice his size. None of them noticed. It was her and her alone to keep the boys and the castle secure. She knew none of them could get inside any other way. So, while she waited to give her frantic mind something else to worry about, she set out to move the stone back into place.

First, she called below, "Kenji! Shinya!"

"Yes?" their simultaneous call answered.

She tried to think. "Do either of you know where the-" she closed her mouth sharply, piercing her lip with her fangs.

"Mother?!" Kenji called in a panic.

"I'm here! I am still here." Kaoru closed her eyes tightly. She had not seen enough of the castle to know where to send them. She grit her teeth, pressing another flow of blood across her tongue. She thought to ask Kenshin through the bond he had used earlier but she did not know how to tap into that power.

"Mother? What is it?"

"Listen to me, both of you," she waited for their acknowledgement and when it did not come she commanded, "Listen!"

"We are!"

Kaoru took a breath, though it undoubtedly did not help like it used to. "I want both of you to find a room! Make certain it is out of the way where no one, not even one of us, could find you easily! Do you hear me? A dark, hidden place! And I want you both to stay there until we come looking for you!" The hisses and snaps of teeth were closer; the stones forcefully folding in on themselves under broken and battered hands were louder even in her ears. "Now go! And if you happen upon something or someone somehow along the way…" she trailed.

"We know what to do," Kenji assured her. She had to strain to hear the barest of footsteps carry them away.

Taking another deeper breath, Kaoru placed her palms to the stone face, and pushed. The rock groaned but did not move. She lowered to her forearms, and her feet began to slide backwards. She ran her legs, pushing against the roof with her feet while pressing against the unyielding stone, and even the groan had stopped. Angrily, Kaoru shouted a wordless cry, slamming her shoulder to the stone and it jumped forward. She stumbled into it. She looked around it to see that it lay over halfway across from totally filling the hole, but before she could smile, a soft, squish of blood splattered on top of the roof.

Kaoru turned around quickly to six pairs of hands flailing for a grip they could not longer grasp. The vampires batted their broken hands on the rock, flinging blood every which way. One of them pushed with his feet and pulled with what of his arm could carry him up. His disjointed fingers cracked even more, the odd angles breaking again and again as he tried using his fingers as a latch. He clambered on the roof. The others caught on soon enough. She had no notion of what to do.

As the others slowly attempted to follow their comrade, hissing and spitting angrily, the first bared its fangs. He lunged toward Kaoru, his quick feet easily sliding to adjust to her dodge. His hand swatted her, but the fingers did not grasp like he wanted them to. He hissed again, the sound of an angry sigh the undertone. The noise followed her as she swiftly escaped from within his reach. Kaoru turned to find no one there.

The other vampires had all gathered around the stone; the one who had attacked her was already trying to shove it further from the way enough to fit through. One was angrily stuck between the stone's hold. Long legs kicking in the air told it was a female caught and hissing the scratchy hiss.

Thin fingers of gold spread over her irises. She unconsciously grabbed a hold of the source where Kenshin had showed her speed, and as she approached the vampire, another tug ripped inside her, one much like what Kenshin aided her with when speed was needed in her run. The neck snapped as Kaoru gripped it and the vampire's head nearly fell from its shoulders. The others turned to her, hissing with their blood-red eyes dotting the translucent night. A thicker film of amber swirled over Kaoru's eyes, blocking the sapphire under it. The four left eyed her with a curious caution, as if not sure what to think about this new creature before them. She was not as powerful as the ones below, yet they felt her force swarming just under her skin, could smell it in the air. It frightened them. When she advanced a step, they retreated two. However, not even fright could cause them to run fast enough.

Kaoru had the blood of two of them covering her arms, dripping from her fingers before they reached the edge. The ones who were preparing to jump were snatched up in a flurry of black feathers, and fell in more than one piece. Kaoru rushed back to the stone, pushing it easily with her palms. The rock fell back into place with a blood splatter splashed over each side. Cut messily in half, the long legs of the female vampire lay on the roof; the rest was tumbling down the stairs.

Kaoru searched over the battlefield with a small smile. The numbers of vampires left fit for anything were nearly exhausted. She exhaled her lungs that she had filled before she attacked the vampires, and the sound was pleased. The sudden and ferocious roar from who she knew, after a second of shock and wondering if the rage and sorrow in the voice truly was Kenshin, was not. Kenshin's bellow turned every head, stopped every fight. Even the wolves dropped the bodies in their mouths, their hackles rising completely on end. The one closest to Kaoru, Sanosuke, emitted a pitiful whine. They were all looking in her direction.

Frantically, she searched for what it was the overwhelming silence was for. It was not for her. Once she really gazed out, peered into the faces she knew, found Kenshin in a state of horror and pain that sent chills over her cold skin, she knew they were not looking at her. They were looking up.

She scrambled for the wall, leaping an extravagant height before touching the wall, but nowhere near the next platform. It did not matter; the want to go forward triggered yet another tug inside her. She scaled the wall.

Kenshin's roar echoed itself; he did not take time to pause from the first. It propelled Kaoru upward faster to escape the crawling cold across her skin. A faint pressure in her mind nearly made her slip, but she regained her footing and continued on until the pressure became a tremendous weight, crashing down on her like freezing waves over and over. She screamed. Echoing cries of anguish followed. She could not see well enough to observe who.

The wolves all gathered, turning in tight half circles and yelping angrily in fright. They watched as each Shadow shouted continuously as they each wavered in their flight.

When Kaoru could finally see, the lip was in front of her eyes. She quickly clambered her way up to stand only to plummet to her knees. Before her—the deep cream colored clothing now completely crimson—sat the Mother. Kaoru reached a trembling hand towards where the dark, dark black hair once flowed, where the woman's head should have been. Blood still bubbled from the opened neck, trickled over the torn flesh to spread where Kaoru knelt, dripping in small flows from the full garments. In a horrible screaming fit, Kaoru turned and scrambled for the edge of the platform. Kenshin was there before her eyes where the sweet oblivion just was. He was blocking her from it.

As tenderly as he had ever been, Kenshin folded his arms around her, holding her as she screamed and screamed. He placed her on her feet in front of him; she was standing on the ledge of the next platform up. She dare not look down.

"Kenshin," she whispered around sobs.

He nodded, turning from her, but keeping her hand in his firm grasp. Kenshin peered into each of the eyes of the Shadow. They all spoke for the first time through the gateways to their souls. They all held such a fear that Kaoru's stomach tightened, as did her hand around Kenshin's. They waited in dreadful silence, but none of them died as they would have thought, maybe as they would have hoped.

The waves of power crashed into all of them, roaring with a shriek more terrifying than the fiercest wind. Kenshin quickly let Kaoru's hand go, his wings carrying him far from the castle roof. She reached for him, before she gasped. Like flies, they were swatted from the sky one by one, a loud thunderous boom resounding as each fell with force enough that each crash echoed, and those echoes filled the stunned silence enough until a final deafening explosion of thunder deafened them and the earth began to quake, shaking the stone castle in its forceful hands.

A laugh, pleasant enough, rose from the cover of the trees as the trees whispered in rustles from the aftermath. Enishi stood, a black-haired vampire smirking by his side, with the head of the Mother in his hand. He waved it, his smile in place and his laugh in every ear.

"There is nothing truly immortal," he hollered as the Fallen Shadow slowly and shakily picked themselves up. Kaoru climbed down, ignoring the pungent smell and ghastly sight of the dead Mother. "The same as nothing is pure, no matter what the purpose they have. There is nothing completely indestructible, having not a weakness just waiting to be discovered. Nothing or no one as such can or ever will exist."

The sky opened again, exposed from the swift wind that disintegrated the clouds. Enishi and his vampire looked to the horizon and were gone before Kaoru had reached the ground. The wolves whined to her side. They were all wounded deeply, blood matting, discoloring, and slicking their fur. She passed them by. Tsubame began licking a deep wound on Yahiko's shoulder. Sanosuke trotted off sniffing to search out Megumi.

Kaoru knelt beside Kenshin. His wings had faded from their shimmering nightly black to a dull ashen grey. His amethyst eyes peered into hers with raw emotion. It burned her heart. She wrapped her arms around him lightly, burying her face in his shoulder. He placed his head over hers, and closed his weary eyes. Kenshin glanced up suddenly to the horizon with a frown. He swiftly looked to each of the Fallen in turn.

The sun slowly cracked the sky, spilling its rays into the dark heavens. The flood spread until the star itself appeared, and the rays directly from it fell across them. The dead and dying vampires immediately burst into flames that roared white-hot into the morning air. Kaoru suddenly began to scream, shying but not fleeing from the light. Kenshin looked to each again, their faces solemn.

* * *

"But, she said not to leave until they come to find us!" Kenji protested as he followed Shinya down the dark corridor.

"I have a feeling, Kenji," the other boy said, "and I am going with my feeling."

Shinya felt along the wall until he found the spot he searched for, and pulled it. Sunlight spilled in from the outside as Shinya grunted opening the heavy wooden doors just enough for him to fit through. He turned to Kenji still standing back in the dark.

"Listen. Does it sound like they are in battle anymore?"

Kenji stood within the shadows after the other left. He could hear it; hear the nothing from the outside. Nothing of what he thought he would have heard, or what he had wanted to hear. It was his mother's hurting cries, the scent of blood so strong he wanted to run far, far away. They were running for the open doors. Curious, Kenji stepped into the sunlight, was blinded by it until he blinked the spots away. He basked in the sunlight, looking up into the bright sky and frowned.

"Kenji!" his father call to him after the group had escaped inside. He turned, a puzzled look on his face, gazing at his father nearly enfolded in the darkness of the castle. Kenshin gazed into his son's face and frowned briefly, then a passiveness shrouded his expression. "Kenji, come, son."

Kenji turned away from him and smelled the fires catch the trees aflame, burn the grasses to nothing. He studied the brightening morning skies masked in white smoke, and, in time, obeyed his father.

* * *

I hope that you thoroughly enjoyed the conclusion of The Shadow series! Man, actually finishing a story feels so good! It encourages me to finish them more often! This would be considered a good thing for those who are reading the stories of mine that are sadly neglected! Yes? Yes?

Speaking of other stories, I know just how much everybody is cheering that The Shadow series is finally over but…yes, but…see, there's this thing and it's called The Requiem and it's the continuation of The Shadow. Now, try to not stone the authoress yet. This one won't be started hopefully until I finish Lunar Eclipse. (Or, would not starting it soon be the reason for stoning…?) But, knowing myself as well as I do, we'll just have to see. If anything, it'll be sooner than I want. -Sweatdrop- So, what does that sound like to you? Rejoicing? Wondering why? Thinking: 'What? Another one? Aw, man…'

Just to make something as clear as possible: I do not, in any way, hate Tomoe. If it came across that way, it's not meant to be that. I actually like her in her own way. She was good for Kenshin during that time in his life. But, how her characterization ended up in this story was nearly completely on its own. At first, she was actually nice…until I sat down and began to write her. Then she changed. A lot. I was shocked even. But, everyone has their own little—some big—quirks and changes that I took liberty in weaving into their character. Most of those quirks were only hinted, especially in the minor characters of the series. All of them will be in more depth in The Requiem.

List of the inspirational songs:

Dance with the Devil by Breaking Benjamin

All I'm Living For by Evanescence

Forsaken and See Who I Am by Within Temptation

Cold by Crossfade

I want to thank anyone and everyone who reviewed all of the chapters in The Shadow series! You people rock! I also would like to thank the lurkers for reading. All of you are so great! Thank you so much again and again and again! See you another time!


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